Owning your own home

Lovely house. Cracking location. But jeeeeez, that's a lot of money.

yeah, but there is no chance of a garage on this site. the two coach houses at the rear were sold off decades ago.

v nice! now, in your kitchen, the pendant light. What rose hook do you have going on there?

That's an amazing picture window in 6/7 but that tree looks a bit close to the house, I'd definitely get a tree surgeon in to look at it.

Lovely house + cracking location = a lot of money

Dibs - Can you ship to Dubai?

Fuck that - do it yourself...

Not sure that would be the best use of his time ;)

v nice! now, in your kitchen, the pendant light. What rose hook do you have going on there?

No idea it was like that when we bought. One of the few things we kept. I will take a detailed picture of it when I get home later.

cool thx. I bought some pendant lights and they're way too long, and it's not an easy job to shorten cable length (plus apparently electrician should do it) so a neat rose hook may be easier. Yours looks not bulky so ideal.

Oh, if you mean the bit that the bight of the cable hangs from, rather than the ceiling terminal, it is simply a u-shaped bracket screwed into the ceiling. Previous owners were total DIY warriors, with very little skill. It looks like the whole job took 3mins and cost about 50p.

Does the job and I've lived happily under it for 7 years.

u-shaped bracket

thx. that'll do pig. that'll do.

Hey @Fox yes they are bloody ugly. I've just bought in a local authority block and everyone has one except me. Seems like folly not to get one

So HSBC have said that it will take 8 weeks to get a new mortgage offer to us - which strikes me as bollocks but if true just doesn't work, as we the vendor wants to exchange in late Feb.

What are my options? Keep the mortgage offer we have and get the vendor to give me the difference in cash?

HSBC are notoriously slow. We had to switch to Halifax to match the timing. They have one of the best deals though. In our case Halifax had a 1% cashback deal so it worked out better eventually.

I like the way you can cook something in the bedroom.

Yep. Handy. That range has been there since the house was built, I think. It is an "Arthur Whites Brixtonian"

You're moving??

How much money did you knock off? If we aren't talking big money (say 5-8k ish) you can agree an allowance to complete certain works which your solicitor retains on completion (I think that's the term )

The amount paid at the land registry would be the original figure and essentially its an off the books arrangement so it doesnt effect your LTV and you therefore don't need to tell your lender

What are my options?

Mortgage broker?

How would that help? sorry if I'm being dumb

Should be able to speed through a (new) mortgage application. The guy we used got a new offer issued within 24 hrs when we re-negotiated the price down after the bank valuation was carried out.

Mortgage brokers usually put applications through a specialist intermediaries team, direct applications tend to go through a retail applications team. As a rule, anyone who is any good in the retail team will move to the intermediaries team so staff tend to be better, quicker and applications don't get sent back for stupid reasons.

Ok - so I need to contact a mortgage broker, tell them where we are at and hope that they can sort something out which has a similar rate and can get sorted quickly?

Any reccos for a broker?

Any reccos for a broker?

I will pm details of the guy we used (I'm not on commission!), best £295 I ever spent. Give him a ring and he will advise.