Owning your own home

If the property is rented then I'd be making sure that the owner has had a building control sign-off. You could call BC to check that this was done. You wouldn't get a loft conversion done yourself without doing things properly, would you.

Catford where?

South Park Cres @6pt

Ah not bad. There's a four bed going next door but one to us (Braidwood Rd), for a second though I thought we might be nebbors.

the plaster cracks will almost certainly be below where the steel supports have been inserted into the party wall. you would have little to no redress imo - just one of those things. patch it up and get on with things.

New neighbours upstairs.
Night 1. eventually get to sleep when their baby stops crying but am woken up at 2am by the dad deciding to explore the shared garden, and our kitchen with a torch. A brief introduction ensues.

Morning 2. Woken at 6:30am by them having a row above our bedroom.

This should be fun.

Oh, and the empty red bull cans in the hallway were nice.

Reminds me why I moved to the burbs so I could have a whole house for myself. Thanks.

It's got me looking at cabins in Sweden again, tbh.

Need to GTFO of London ASAP.

New neighbours upstairs.

Living below other people puts the hell in hell is other people

which is why we receive endless complaints from them downstairs about the constant screaming and sawing. and the blood.

Ive just moved into a block of flats and so far upstairs seem fine, its the people who i have my head to in my bedroom im raging at. They are fine 6 days a week, but every sunday (the one dam night id really like to be in bed before 12) they have what sounds like a (not civilized) dinner party till ~2

do you not keep the sawdust for that?

We had that with the people who lived below us in our last place.

They thought that karaoke at 2am on their balcony was the right thing to do. Cunts.

The previous upstairs tenant's kids used to have UFC comps above our living room. Was mostly lolz but on school holidays it went on till 11 ish.

Your kitchen?! WTF!

I just wouldn't trust that the neighbour had Building Control approval if they haven't bothered to get a party wall agreement. Having seen some awful and sometimes dangerous loft conversions in the past, I don't really trust people to do the right thing.

At the very least, I'd ask building control if they inspected the property as it only takes an email. I'd also take photos of the existing movement, and see if any old photos exist.

Should we move out savings into a house in Scotland (which we could buy outright)? We're making fuck all interest on our savings and we have enough to buy something up there. The idea is we could keep renting (and saving) here for now rather than move (and not particularly interested in being a landlaird). So: money in a house in Scotland > money in a bank account/ISAs?

I'd buy the house in Scotland, in your situation. As long as you are not likely to need the cash soon.

We were going to buy here. Have an AIP. But I'm honestly very conflicted about London right now so kind of backing off from the idea. Confluence of issues around future work location, economic climate, political climate, etc..

If only the Eurostar was 10% of the price, and a bit faster.

And le Pen was not about to win.

We looked a Lille last year. I only needed to be in one day a week for 20 weeks this year. Could have made it work.

House in Scotland, air bnb rental job?

I'd likely have to do Tues-Thurs in London, makes it harder but not impossible.

Not really the plan. I figure money in a bank is not doing anything but losing value. Some people buy gold. Why not a house in Scotland which we can use on weekends/summer? Running costs shouldn't be more than a couple of k a year at most. Renting would mean we couldn't use it. Maybe AirBnB would be enough to cover those costs and we'd break even (which would still be an improvement on money in the bank).