Owning your own home

I thought you were going to be a Walthamstow property millionaire?

We sorted a new mortgage deal on Saturday that saves us £150 a month. That means we're now paying less for a house than we've ever paid for accommodation in London before - renting, student halls, everything. It takes the piss really. Feels good, but some middle class guilt about how unjust it seems!

If you can, keep paying that £150 as an overpayment to the mortgage each month.

You wont miss it but it will soon start knocking months of the term of your mortgage.

Its certainly true to say that mortgage repayments, especially if you have plenty of equity, have never,ever, been cheaper.

I think our repayment on our house is something like 570 a month capital repayment. To put that into context, in 2007, when I was an impoverished trainee solicitor working in brighton on 19k a year I was paying 500 quid to rent a very, very sh1t bedsit (i.e a room) in Worthing with a bunch of stoners. the heating didn’t work, and I had slugs coming into the bathroom.

Ship sailed :'(

Pretty far down the path of buying a leasehold property, but have just been informed of "major works" of an undefined cost. These comprise of roof maintenance (requiring full scaffolding), sorting out the communal areas (it's a small block so probably just a lick of paint) and other small bits and pieces. The Section 20 notice was issued in April, but the contract is still out to tender with builders etc.

£11k in the service charge slush fund to deal with this. We are stretching ourselves to buy, so moving in and being hit with a £5k bill the next month would be a killer.

Has anyone dealt with a similar situation? Our options seem to be:

• Wait until the costs can be defined, then say yes/no. No one is able to say when this might be and we risk the chain getting pissed off
  
• Ask the seller to cover the costs in a retention agreement in our contract (we'd incur solicitor's fees for this and it would extend the process)
  
• Re-negotiate sale price
  
• Ragequit the whole process
  
  

????

Bit more detail about the property? Is it ex LA?

Our 1930s block had a new roof two years ago. Cost £250k, worked out at about £3.5k per flat in the end although the major works fund was healthy enough to just about swallow that.

My gut reaction would be to negotiate a reduction.

Is this in W2 by any chance?

Yes - try to negotiate first.

Nope not ex-LA. It's a small purpose built block with 8 flats in it. I think it was built in the 80s so it's not terribly old. The seller, obviously, says that the costs aren't anticipated to be much. There was an issue with a leak that has precipitated all this.

@Howard nope, it's in Crystal Palace

a leak that has precipitated all this

ha.

glad someone got it... :)

@veLLo has experienced major roof works on his building (I think).
I don't think it was a pleasant experience.

Lewisham homes?

If the seller is confident it'll be cheap you can agree a retention of, say, £10k that stays with the lawyers after you've moved in until the works are done. Once done and paid for the seller gets the remainder of the money. If they're genuinely confident they shouldn't have a problem with that...

Yes that sounds like it might be the best approach to be honest... Annoying it's coming to that though!

@Chalfie no this is a property company

We had this exact issue. The bill for us was £6.5k but I think all the flats were offered 6 months to pay it over. If they haven't even got a figure yet I wouldn't imagine you'll have to stump up for at least 6 months - these things are often challenged, particularly if as in our case there is historical bad blood and general mistrust of the freeholder.

Thanks that's encouraging. So you could pay in instalments?

Alright meatsacks.

Seller accepts my offer at £190k. I get the memo of sale this morning and it says the agreed price is £200k - ten grand above what we agreed.

Is this normal or should I start cracking skulls like soft boiled eggs?

Bonnet shitting time

I'm going to coat the fucker in anti-theft paste.

Nice one

Tosser

Well the memo is wrong.

While you're at it ensure the agents remove the ad from their site and Rightmove/Zoopla, etc asap.

PurpleBricks were rubbish at this and we were just waiting for a gazzumping.

£3k ain't much in the grand scheme of things, but dropped ceilings in the rest of the house sounds a bit grim - how high are they now and what would they be lowered to?
You're looking to get 2.1m in the loft, right? Presumably that's associated with a certain room area/width. You don't really need to be able to stand up near the edges of a room. Or you can live without for one loft-shaped room...

Sold my property 2 weeks ago, delayed getting a memorandum of sale for a few days then buyer withdrew offer due to not having the funds.
Buyer has come back today and wants to continue with sale.

Am I opening myself to a whole heap of trouble if I say yes?