Are you ready to buy in London?

A buyer at £500,000 as a standard owner-occupier pays roughly £12,500 in stamp duty (April 2025 rates), £1,500–£2,500 for a RICS survey, £2,000–£3,500 in conveyancing, and often £500–£1,500 more for a leasehold specialist when the flat has a short lease or a complex service charge. That is £16,500–£20,000 before you move in — 3–4% on top of the price. An additional-property buyer at the same price pays £37,500 in SDLT alone: £25,000 more than a standard buyer.

London flat prices fell roughly £19,000 year-on-year by mid-2026, which changes the risk calculation: overpaying today has less margin for a correction than it did at the 2021–2022 peak. Standard lender affordability sits at about 4–4.5× income, with some specialist lenders reaching 5–5.5× for high earners. A joint income of £80,000 with a 10% deposit supports a purchase around £380,000–£440,000 at standard multiples — before you account for the carrying cost of a leasehold flat.

FIFSCORE™ turns that into a concrete readiness read, weighing SDLT, service charge and survey risk alongside the mortgage rather than leaving them to a mental estimate.

Every leasehold flat carries a service charge, and many London blocks run reserve-fund deficits. A poorly maintained building can levy a special assessment — a one-off charge on top of the annual service charge — for roof, cladding or lift works. Before you exchange, request three years of service-charge accounts and the latest reserve-fund report. An upcoming major-works notice is a real cost that changes the effective purchase price.

This is the wrong tool if you are a cash buyer with no mortgage dependency who has already instructed a solicitor — your readiness question is then a legal and survey question, not a financial one. Come back to a readiness read when the monthly carrying cost is still the open question.