Owning your own home

I'm just on the buying side and these are the categories I have in my spreadsheet.

Solicitor/Conveyancing
Broker
Lenders arrangement fee
Mortgage Account Fee
Land registry
Searches
My Surveyer
Bank valuation fee

(If any, I'll add more once I get them in)>

Where there any others? I'm just trying to work out if what I thought I had for a deposit I do actually have and then also holding some back for any potential work we wouls have to do to the place

The other question is:

2year Fixed Rate 2.29% over 25 years £1750.27 per month .
3year Fixed Rate 2.85% over 25 years £1,863.45 per month
5year Fixed Rate 3.34% over 25 years £1,965.87 per month

How do I work out what's best? These are all based on 25 years mortgages.

Ok thnx plz bai

Where there any others?

This is what I am looking at.

Solicitor £1,030.00
Conveyancing £161.27
Broker £0
Bank Valuation Fee - PAID £680.00
Lenders arrangement fee £1,500.00
Mortgage Account Fee £300.00
Land registry £270.00
Searches - PAID £300.00
Independent Surveyer - PAID £800.00
Insurance (coz im freehold) £???00.00

(If any, I'll add more once I get them in)

Are you rolling stamp duty into the price of the house?

Nah I do have it as a "cost" but it's so glaringly big that it's kind of considered as it's own section.
I guess it's how you want to run your spreadsheet!
:)

Ask me about my mortgage schedule calculator

Does insurance around £110 to £150 sound reasonable for 1980's terrace?

Yes.

Got an email from the mortgage advisor that my application is at offer stage now, so should receive something in the post very soon. Searches were ordered a couple of weeks ago, so things should start moving now right?

Moving in tomorrow, I've not had time to go in with being away and working but the wife and mother have been shifting smaller things and I'm getting a van tomorrow for the big things.

Ridden past a house for sale yesterday and today, 45 Ringmore Rise, the sign says Hunters but I can't find it on their site - anyone better at searching than I am who can find it?

They might have put the sign up but not put it on the market or their website yet. Our upstairs neighbours flat is for sale and they are already arranging viewings but they are pre-sale viewings and it isn't technically on the market yet. Or it might have sold already and they've just not taken the sign down yet, presuming it hasn't recently appeared.

^^ Yeah, they might not have had the valuation done yet.

Ok, thanks, I'll keep looking at the site.

It's a tumble down shit-pit with broken windows, but it's also massive and in a great location.

Right. Anyone know anything about party wall agreements?

We have given our neighbour the details of what we want to do and he asked to do it formally, so we sent him a 'Party Structure Notice' and now he wants to decline consent. This is because "This will mean we have to have a Party Wall agreement. This should make both of us feel comfortable, should any problems arise in the future."

He doesn't seem to actually be against us doing the work, he seems to be declining because he wants a surveyor involved. This all seems a bit nuts to me. Actually declining means we will need to have a Party Wall Award (an agreement seems to be for when you agree, funnily enough). I'm not averse to getting a surveyor involved if it's actually needed, but jumping straight to a dispute rather than talking about it and sorting it out like grown ups seems very odd.

I'm also worried that if we go with his plan we will officially have had a dispute and have to declare it if we ever came to sell, thereby potentially wiping thousands of pounds off the value of both of our properties.

I've done quite a lot of internet searching and can't find anything that helpful. Halp?

You're not allowed a new house until you've finished that one. It's like finishing your greens before you're allowed pudding.

I'm also worried that if we go with his plan we will officially have had a dispute and have to declare it if we ever came to sell, thereby potentially wiping thousands of pounds off the value of both of our properties.

I know a little, but as we always employ surveyors to do the dirty work so to speak I couldn't claim to have ever read the whole act (or to have understood it).

I think it's more the terminology of the Act rather than a blazing row kind of dispute, so while they'll be a record of an award if a future purchaser wants to check it, I can't think why it would affect the resale value, possibly if the owner wants to carry out future work? It's perfectly normal to withhold assent for works and use a surveyor to agree the process and in my opinion it's an eminently sensible thing to do if an your neighbour is ever proposing works to a party wall.

What you should be aware of is that you'll be liable for all the surveyors costs going forward.
Although it's often the case that each party appoints their own surveyor, an award can be drawn up by a single surveyor as they have to act independently in drawing up the PWA. I'd speak to your neighbour and ask if they'd consider going down this route as it will keep your costs down. Your architect should be advising you about the process in any case.

What is a party wall? I'm assuming it's not as fun as it sounds...

Care to share the LTV? We got 3.34% for 75% LTV 6 months ago. The same lender (YBS) is now doing it for 2.69% with a £845 fee.

There are some crazy cheap mortgage deals about if you've got a decent chunk of equity. Unless my current lender, the ybs, comes up with something special when they release their next lot of deals at the end of the month- I'm going with tescos 2 year fix at 1.59 PC with free legals and free valuation, and a £195 application fee.

The clubcard points will be handy too.

85% LTV for those rates

But it will be somewhere between 80-85% - looking at 485k as a ballpark figure for a house in/around the Leyton area

I'm keeping some money from the deposit back in case we would need to carry out any work and will ideally do a loft conversion.

We should have an equity event in 3-5 years which would net us the mortgage value + 15/25% so I'm wondering what implications that might have on the decision I should make. Gonna have a look at the excel calculator and play around with some deals.

Well the rate doesn't seem outrageous - YBS has 3.24% with a fee just shy of £1k (I think when you add on some other charge they don't really make obvious at the start, it'd be just over £1k).

£485k gets you something solid in EN1, just saying

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49458187.html

That needs a new consumer unit and, by extension of, a rewire. A mixture of cartridge and wire fuses does not meet current regs at all. Also no RCD and a Economy 7 timer?

Avoid!

That needs a new consumer unit and, by extension of, a rewire. A mixture of cartridge and wire fuses does not meet current regs at all. Also no RCD and a Economy 7 timer?

Avoid!

Nonsense. The fact it doesn't meet current regs is irrelevant - if it met regs at the time the work was done, it's fine from a regs POV now and into the future. It's a bit of a mish-mash, but it's been done reasonably neatly, so the workmanship that you can't see is probably OK too. No reason whatsoever to avoid.

A new consumer unit would be tidier, and MCBs and RCD protection will trip a bit faster than wired fuses, but I wouldn't see that as a great priority. If you're having other major work done - I think plumbing was mentioned - and you'd consider a rewire for other reasons (I bet a lot more sockets would be handy) then it is probably worth doing the rewire at the same time so you only have one lot of disruption and making good.

If I were doing it, I'd be contemplating getting rid of the E7, and probably running Cat5 and TV/video/music distribution throughout.

John that seems as valid advice as your zip ties for a broken frame to finish a 300km audax.