Owning your own home

yeah i thought plasterer too, however if it is the pointing we're not resolving the provlem. just want a diagnosis at this point.

we had a damp / mould issue before but we stuck an extractor in and that seems to have taken care of the worst of it.

what's yer plasterer's details?

PM sent.

Takes some pics.

here you go.

I think that's coming up or through the wall from the other side. Unless you have very bad aim.

Waste leaking into the wall? Can you pull the pedestal out and see what's happening with the waste pipework?

^ i am firmly of the opinion that anything of this nature should be left to qualified professionals. which sort is really the question.

i'll damo's man a ring.

they all told me there is little point in even viewing if I don't have an agreement in principle for a mortgage, maybe they were lying, I don't know...

I don't know if they are lying, but a "mortgage in principle" is meaningless.

Work out your deposit, your income, how much you can afford a month and call a mortgage broker. They will tell you what you roughly can borrow. Add this to your deposit and you have what you can afford.

If asked just say, yes, you have a mortgage in principle.

Could it be the waste if it's visible above the sink as well?

That's a lot of 'soil' flowing about behind the plaster if so.

Commiserations @greenhell. Let this be known as "square plate Tories' revenge."

If it's going into the plaster then over time it'll saturate it, will spread out from around the waste (if it is that), you can see it below the basin, and above to a lesser extent. It's probably aliens.

Can you see the walls the outside?

Also have a look at the seal on the shower screen and the tiles.

the wall is on the satanist downstair's side so i'll have to knock on his door to have a butchers. what should i look for? the sea on the shower screen is looking a snootch perished but that could be on account of the damp, possibly not the cause of it.

/cheers rich + everyone else

If its an internal wall on the other side and there's no source of moisture then it's obviously coming from your side. There may bad staining on crowley's side which you will bring to his attention.

It may just be a result of the prev moisture breaking down the bond of the plaster.

that makes sense. it's an external facing wall so i suspect it's either:

a) rain water somehow filtering in thru the wall
b) leaky cunty water pipes.

either way i'm going to get a plasterer in - seems to be the most likely individual to have come up against similar in the past so will be best positioned to proffer a diagnosis / solution.

drinkz on friday? hows the KISSertation coming together? K&I sending our love to S.

I am speaking to one in a couple of weeks time, but I already have a fairly good idea what sort of deals I will be able to get.

With the agreement in principle, apparently one would get a letter proofing that from the lender and that's the piece of doc some agents want to see before putting an offer forward for you...

Buying a house is sooooo annoying... can anyone lend me enough money to become a cash buyer... currently I could probably afford buying a garage outright.

Personally when I sold my house, I didn't entertain any buyers who hadn't at least got a mortgage in principle.

Does anyone have any idea where there is definitive guidance about Fire Regs for flats?

I own one flat in a converted victorian house and we (all three flats) are looking to replace a fire alarm system but I'm going round in circles trying to find something that is up-to-date and seems legit. Thanks

Have you looked at the Building Regulations - Approved Document Part B Volume 2?
It covers fire safety for all buildings other than houses, and has some general guidance on alarm systems. Not sure where a link would be online, the Planning Portal appears to be down and I can't find them on Communities.gov.uk although I feel like they should be there somewhere...

Jesus Wilberforce Christ. We've now had to submit 47 documents to support our mortgage application to prove our income and identities. We're not a straight forward case but they really could take the information that HMRC provided to them as gospel! Gaaaah!

Thanks @hoefla yeah I'll try and get hold of that once the Planning Portal is up and running again. I just want one definitive/legit document that tells us what we need. Hopefully that'll do the trick. Thanks again

We're not a straight forward case???

Lol

It does seem rather strict that we had to submit five years of bank statements for one of our savings accounts.

That is heavy...

Urgh. The Faversham market is driving me nuts. We're sold and need somewhere after weeks wasted on the artex money-pit (TM) but nothing is coming on. In desperation we saw a retirementastic bungalow and a horrible new-build townhouse on Saturday. Meh and pah.

Had two possibilities lined up to see tomorrow and one has just been taken back off the market. The one that's left is potentially rad but is already over budget and clearly needs a shit-tonne of work so is extremely unlikely to be viable unless we get it below list price and works are only cosmetic. It appears to have last been decorated in 1971. Not going to happen is it?

Annoyingly, loads of stuff is available slightly smaller than we want for slightly under budget and there's loads to be had slightly grander than we want and slightly over budget. There's been literally fuck-all in the Goldilocks zone since dreamhouse sailed off to a low bidder something like two months ago.

It's not like we're being picky with what's in our budget, there's just this huge void between pokey 3 bed terraces at £270-320k and big 4 or 5 bed detached places on land at £450k plus.

There are streets and streets of lovely spacious 3 and 4 bed semis which presumably fill that £350-£400k price point gap, but literally not one of them is for sale. Good sign I suppose. Just frustrating.

5 year??? Has either of you been up to no good?!!?! (Sorry bad joke...)

I'd struggle to get 18 months worth...