Owning your own home

If you do look local I'd avoid Amphlett Lissimore, in particular 'Bob Moyles.' When we sold our flat earlier in the year he was very slow and unorganised (even for a solicitor). First time we tried to exchange and complete same day he forgot to request his client's funds, second time we tried to complete he didn't transfer the money on the day (no chain btw), and we completed the following working day, which being a bank holiday weekend cost the buyer about £250 in late fees.

College road was always good for hill training, usually quieter than the other 'cause it has a toll booth on (cars only).

So the consensus is that it's better to do local, or at least somewhere that you're likely to visit rather than cheap and random location?

We used a solicitor in Leatherhead and he wanted us to visit in person for the anti-money laundering identity checks and to sign some documents on another occasion later in the process. Fortunately, they had a Central London office. I would definitely use someone local.

I think if they're decent it doesn't really matter where they are (unless the purchase is particularly complicated and you want to sit down and discuss). There's no way you should have to visit for KYC, it should be possible to do it remotely and that would make me wonder about their competence in general.

The trouble is that you don't necessarily know if they're decent until you've used them so you may want someone you can badger in person.

Use someone that has been recommended to you. I used a remote one and didn't encounter any problems with their being a long way away, though I wouldn't recommend them due to competence.

It should be a reasonable question in your initial conversation with them - 'will we ever have to meet for any reason in this transaction'

Okay thanks. It's about a £300 - £400 difference for a lawyer oop north vs one in London. But the ability to go into an office and talk to someone is good... Food for thought.

What he said. A personal recommendation is worth a lot, regardless of location. If you get a good one, the hassle it could save is definitely worth a couple of hundred quid.

Mine were based in Preston and were cheap. The job got done in the end but there were times I would have like to have caused them physical harm.

I would recommend my Manchester based solicitor.

I would recommend my Manchester based solicitor.

Twice. I'd recommend them twice.

Currently recovering from some proper earache from a 'friend' telling me that I need buy the flat I have been renting for the last 8 years... erm... failing that, plan B is to buy another place, turn part of it into a working studio, so I'd do my freelance in it, then rent out another part of the place to make a profit so it can pay for my mortgage and then income on top. Oh and that my deposit could come from the bank of mummy and daddy...

(Yes, dream on... I'd add a castle to the list while we are at it!)

This is from someone who knows nothing about my intention to buy and complain that £600pcm renting a room in fairly central areas London is way too expensive...

She is coming to live in London in a couple of weeks and she is going to teach me how to be a top earner renting out a home I have yet and will struggle to buy...

I wonder if she is talking about the same London as the one we live in.

Sometimes, people really need to learn to mind their own business...

There. Rant. Over.

@BQ It's utter bellex. Problem is, our buyers have been waiting for us to get out since Jan and for fear of having to start all over again with a new sale when brexit happened with so much market weirdness going on, we decided to agree to complete by the end of August and just get out. In the meantime, we found a chain free purchase and have started the purchase of that. We never expected to tie them in so these bullshit last minute bobbins are hurting the buyer more than us. It's causing aggro for us sorting the practicalities of moving out. Meh. Their loss.

She is coming to live in London in a couple of weeks and she is going to teach me how to be a top earner renting out a home I have yet and will struggle to buy...

Is she coming to London to live? If so I really look forward to your update of ferocious payback when she realises how much dogshit she's been talking.

Oh and that my deposit could come from the bank of mummy and daddy...

Motherfucker I missed this. Oh man now my blood is boiling too.

Whose parents have a spare £20k + floating about the goddamned place? For fucks actual sake

Whose parents have a spare £20k + floating about the goddamned place?

Quite a lot of people? I don't think it's that uncommon for people in their sixties and seventies, or older grandparents, to have quite a lot in savings. Or if they've paid off their mortgages they might remortgage to get the cash.

For people trying to buy it makes a massive and seemingly arbitrary difference, but I don't think it's a tiny elite whose parents help them buy. Thinking that there's also a difference within the group of older people who have savings, between those that consider their offsprings desire to buy a home to be a valid rainy day, or not. Some might, quite reasonably, want to hold onto it for illness and old age.

I don't think it's a tiny elite whose parents help them buy

I think we come from different backgrounds. To me, ANYONE who can afford to buy a place in London, with or without help, is in an elite of one kind or another. And if their parents are able to just drop £20k on them for the lols, they're even more elite. I don't come from a middle class background where savings are the norm - most of the people I grew up with still live in their council houses.

In response to your "Whose parents? ffs" I was saying "See all those people buying houses in London? Not all of them, but lots of them" because I thought you might actually think that it's uncommon, I see now that it was rhetorical...

But I think we have different understandings of "elite" - to me middle class, by definition, isn't elite, even if it's still out of reach of lots of people. I don't think your or my backgrounds are relevant, but I don't actually know whether elite is a relative term or not. London is expensive whether renting or buying, so I guess we're all part of the global elite. First world problems etc.

Do you know anyone at all whose parents own their house? Do you consider someone remortgaging to get the cash "for the lols"? What about getting a lump sum out of their pension? At what point do savings become elite, 5k? 10k? Saving ~1k a year for a large part of your working life, doesn't seem far-fetched. Sure if you don't have that option it's a luxury, on the other hand... I think if you're in this thread at all, ie. considering buying a home, you've got to accept you're already in a group of people who have relative wealth.

She arriving in a few weeks and has asked me to look for a place for her? I said for the areas she wants, she'd be look at about £600 pcm plus bills, too much for her... she was look about like 300-400 all inc. Yes she did live in London about 8 years ago and even then, 300-400 was on the low side I think.

What really annoyed me in that conversation was that she thinks I am like, quite probably herself, we want to invest in property and then make a good living out all of it by milking other people. She is going to teach me all the business planning and set up a company etc etc. I reckon a couple of millions would be enough to begin with? I am just gonna call Mummy and Daddy now... while I am at it, anyone needs some spare cash? I do a very reasonable interest rates.

Lucky for the people you grew up with they managed to get a council house, most of us don't have that option.

There are plenty of people in their 50-70s that will have owned properties outright for decades in and around London that have ballooned in value and also had grand parents pass these down, lots of cash/capital sloshing around for some.

But I think we have different understandings of "elite" - to me middle class, by definition, isn't elite, even if it's still out of reach of lots of people. I don't think your or my backgrounds are relevant, but I don't actually know whether elite is a relative term or not. London is expensive whether renting or buying, so I guess we're all part of the global elite. First world problems etc.

Exactly. For me anyone who can afford to eat enough every day is part of very rare and privileged group on this planet. I'd count almost everyone in the UK as being part of that elite. Then anyone who has a roof over their heads. Then people who afford to buy. Then those who can afford to buy in London. Etc. It's a sliding scale.

Your'e absolutely right. Ten years ago I was renting a room in Shoreditch for £400 a month and we were all incredibly grateful for it - it was super low then. I think her wakeup call is going to be wonderful. Things Done Changed.

Different times innit. They're all being kicked out now of course but back in the days council housing was the standard option. I don't know how many people living in grim high rises in Barking in the 1980s would've counted themselves 'lucky' but it's some indication of how fucked the market is now that we all have that inclination to romanticise those times.

.

Some people living in council houses prefer to be in them. no maintenance issues and spare money to waste on fags and down the pub.

Not cool bro