What Does the Annual Maintenance Charge Cover? Every Cost, Explained Plainly

August’s Private Collection membership means owning a share in a Collection of beautiful homes across Europe. Apart from the share price, there's a predictable set of ongoing costs that keep everything running: the Annual Maintenance Charge and the Sinking Fund. The Annual Maintenance Charge covers the day-to-day running of your homes, while the Sinking Fund is built up gradually for larger, scheduled work, like a roof renovation or an exterior repaint. Both are explained in full before you join, and nothing arrives as a surprise later. 

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In this article: 

• What the Annual Maintenance Charge covers, and how it's paid. 
• What the Sinking Fund covers, and why it exists.
• What isn't included in either charge.
• How Private Collection membership compares to ownership of a second home outright. 

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Ask anyone who's owned and managed a second home on their own, and having costs is rarely the surprise. What is unpredictable, is when exactly the costs arrive and what each one covers, until you have the bill. Sole ownership means a scattered list of contacts, each billed on its own schedule, with no one but you following everything through. August’s Private Collection membership works differently. Every cost is named, explained and agreed before you join – two annual costs, not a dozen scattered ones, and nothing that arrives as a surprise. 

What does the Annual Maintenance Charge cover? 

The Annual Maintenance Charge (AMC) is the yearly cost that keeps a home running day to day. It covers housekeeping, garden and pool care, insurance, utilities and local taxes across every home in your Collection – the ordinary costs of upkeep, bundled into one predictable charge rather than a dozen separate bills. Recent AMCs have run from around €12,500 a year for a Pied à Terre share up to around €19,800 for Premium. The exact figure depends on the Collection and its homes. 

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What does the Sinking Fund cover?

While the AMC covers what a home needs every year, the Sinking Fund covers what it needs eventually. It's built up gradually, year after year, for the larger, scheduled work – a roof renovation, an exterior repaint, the improvements that inevitably come every few years rather than every season. 

The point of building it up in advance is simple: by the time that work is actually due, the funds are already there. No emergency bill, no unplanned cost landing on members all at once – just structured planning doing its job years before anyone notices the need. 

What isn't included in the AMC or the Sinking Fund?

Between them, the AMC and the Sinking Fund cover everything that is needed to keep the homes ready and in a beautiful condition. What they don't cover is the cost of an actual stay. Each visit ends with a cleaning invoice, billed at the direct cost of what that particular clean involves rather than a flat rate – for a typical four-person stay, that generally falls somewhere between €150 and €350, depending on the home and its location. It includes full linen service, so towels and bed linen are taken care of without you needing to pack them. It's the one cost that isn't fixed in advance, simply because it depends on how you use the home, and it's billed after the stay rather than folded into the yearly charges.

How do these costs compare with owning a second home outright?

Owning a second home outright most of the time means planning for an open-ended list: routine repairs that turn out to be bigger than expected, contractors to find and manage from a distance, insurance to arrange and renew, and the larger repair jobs that come eventually – a new roof, exterior work – that always seem to arrive without much warning. None of it is really predictable, because none of it is planned for in advance.

Private Collection membership replaces that whole list with two numbers, explained and confirmed before membership begins and reviewed transparently every year. There's nothing hidden in a vague charge, and nothing that shows up as a surprise – just the AMC and the Sinking Fund, covering everything needed to maintain a home.

Explore the Collections or get in touch to find out what membership could look like for you. 

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FAQ: 

What does the Annual Maintenance Charge cover?

The AMC is a yearly cost that covers the day-to-day management across every home in a Collection – including housekeeping, garden and pool care, insurance, utilities and local taxes. Recent AMCs have ranged from around €12,500 to €19,800 a year, depending on the Collection. 

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What is the Sinking Fund, and how is it different from the AMC?

The AMC covers what a home needs regularly; the Sinking Fund covers what it needs eventually. It's built up gradually for larger, scheduled work like a roof renovation or an exterior repaint, so the cost is already covered by the time the work is due. 

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Are there any costs not included in the AMC or the Sinking Fund?

The one cost not included in any of the charges is the cleaning invoice at the end of a stay, billed after the holiday is over, based on the actual cost of that clean  – typically between €150 and €350 for a four-person stay. Everything else needed to maintain the home is covered by the AMC and the Sinking Fund. 

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What does August Private Collection membership include?

What the market calls co-ownership, August has reimagined as Private Collection membership – title-holding ownership of a share in a Collection of exceptional homes, rather than a right to use one. Membership comes with access according to your lifestyle and a community of like-minded homeowners. The annual costs are covered by the Annual Maintenance Charge and Sinking Fund, which keep every home managed at the same standard. 

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