Owning your own home

@andyp @Aroogah Thanks for the advice!

You definitely want to be Joint tenants, not tenants in common. That way if you die your partner automatically gets the house, and it doesn't form part of your estate, and can't be taxed.
And until you're married, make wills. Less important afterwards but if Bobbinbird had made a will probate would have been a whole lot easier and faster.

if you die your partner automatically gets the house,

True

and it doesn't form part of your estate, and can't be taxed

Not true. It's still a transfer of value for the purposes of section 3 IHTA 1984.

Is this standard construction? The interior 'cladding'(?) seems to be throwing one of the contractors I spoke to.

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Unusual. Must have had some lovely cladding and it would have been a shame to waste it.

Oh yes, I'm thinking of spouse exemption.
@Pifko - Get married.

Agreed, marriage is very tax efficient. Can be expensive though, I gather.

I paid for most of a house, and walked away with under 20% of it's value.

So, you know, swings & roundabouts.

That you pay for, but don't get to keep.

But you walked away with your dignity and respect.

I doff my cap to you sir

Looks like only white people live in Dalston now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q-4ry6O13s&feature=youtu.be

What I don't understand about that is this: if it was important to you that an area was totally white, you'd be lured in by that advert (and be a total dick, obv...) - but don't the developers think that you'd visit before buying, and therefore see the reality of Dalston?

Brief: Make it look like London and appealing to the Chinese investors but if you attract UK douche thats great too.

Pretty much spot on.

Fuck's sake. Got out of there just in the nick of time.

Talking of distorted representations of London, I watched Eastenders recently. I normally leave the room when Mrs Sparky puts it on. It was full of market traders, cafe workers and other relatively low-paid folk living in three-bed Georgian houses 100ft from a Tube station. Much LOLs.

Close-boarded roof was pretty common and standard at one point (late C19th to pre-war I think), using feather-edged boards that the tiles hang from, or if slates just nailed on, I guess these could be square-edged but my knowledge runs out there. Would not normally have any felt/underlay.

Tiles were re-done around 2007 I think, I guess they've just left the boards in place and laid felt on top of that (hopefully!)

We are plotting to extend out into our side return, and are looking for a contractors to come and quote.
Layout wise creating something similar to this...

Anyone got anyone they would recommend for this kind of job?

Cool. Will look into them.
We also need an all round contractor to take the external wall away and put a steel in, pour concrete floor, electrics, plumbing first and second fix etc.

Some advice please.

We are looking at getting a new driveway and in the process making it wider than it is now. The issue I have is there is no pavement in front of our house so the curb is right up against our front garden. In order to make the driveway wider we'll have to remove/modify a piece of the curb.

Is this something the council will be pissed off about? If so, whats the best way of asking for permission?

dodgy Google Map photo included, red square is piece of curb in question.

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https://www.gov.uk/apply-dropped-kerb

perfect!

thanks.

Modest terrace compromise plans continue to get more involved. Went over proposals with builders on site this week. It's more or less turned into a total renovation. Ladywife is now with me on fearing cost and general ballache being prohibitive. We should get first quotes back today.

In the meantime we're looking at a few variations on the scheme. The current layout is standard Victorian 2 up 2 down terrace with a half width, 2 storey extension on the back for kitchen (ground floor) and third bedroom and bathroom (first floor). Stairs run front to back on the right hand side and are currently open to the dining room.

We've been told that extending into the loft and basement will require fire doors between the dining room and stairs. I'm not necessarily against partitioning the stairs off from the dining room as this will stop evening jollity noise reaching the first floor bedrooms, but one of my misgivings about the house is that the dining room is quite gloomy. This will make it even darker unless we can install a roof light over the stairs and somehow allow light through that partition into the dining room while retaining separation for noise and fire regs.

Anyone seen anything clever or nice looking which fits the bill? Sliding glass door? Glass panels in the new wall? Does my description make sense?

Glass panels in walls are doable but obviously need to be fire rated.
I fitted an automist sprinkler system when I removed the fire door of my kitchen. I have the fixed wall head - smartscan wasn't available at the time.
It's worth running your plans past your council's building control If they're not happy then move on to an approved inspector who will usually be more adaptable and understanding of your unique plans compared to the council. I used bbs building control