Owning your own home

There was no consultation as the survey which the managing agent performed failed to identify the service they then removed during the electrical works.

I fully expect the managing agent to refuse to reinstate, question is whether a solicitor could use what is in the lease to force the issue?

You'd struggle, is there adequate lighting outside the garages? That is more likely to be adopted than internal supplies for garages.

Just spoke to my Freeholder's solicitor about our lease extension. The background being after March this year will be the last full year above 80 years left on the lease. Once the lease drops below 80 years, it becomes exponentially more expensive to extend year on year. Statutory law affords the homeowner a guaranteed extension of 90 years with reasonable terms once you have owned the property for more than two years although you can start informal negotiations at any time without affecting your statutory rights.

I will have owned the flat for 2 years from this July so could serve statutory notice then. However, this route comes with more legal and surveying/valuation costs.

If the freeholder is willing to informally offer something reasonable and no worse than the terms I would likely get by going the statutory route, I will go ahead as it could mean a £4k saving.

But if they are dicks, I'll serve the statutory notice the day after the two year anniversary.

From speaking to their solicitor (I don't have contact details for the freeholder, our ground rent is paid to the solicitor as I think it is actually owned by the executors of the original freeholder's will), he seemed to suggest that they might be ok and even said unprompted that if they don't offer the full 90 years and decent terms, we will go the statutory route.

Here's hoping.

PS - before anyone suggests, I have looked into share of Freehold and with the other leaseholders, this would be an utter ball-ache an no cheaper considering I don't pay any service charges. This way I'll end up with a 170 year lease and not have to worry about any issues in that regard when I come to sell or re-mortgage. Not for another 90 years anyway.

Adequate for what? Seeing where you are going outside the garages? Yes. Adequate for seeing what's what inside the garages? No.

Was the old lighting adequate for that? Yes.

Adequate for security purposes is about as far as you will be able to push. Unless lighting or power to the garages is a listed service, it's fair game for removal. We had this issue at a place we rented. One of the lease holders took up the challenge and came up against the same argument that the managing agent was required to light communal areas but not private ones. It was a swine because quite a few people were running power from the light socket to alarms etc which no longer worked. We moved out a year later, power was still off and the argument continued.

Most annoying thing is that each flat owns a share of the freehold- we employ the managing agent and he's making decisions to take services away from us. It's maddening.

we employ the managing agent and he's making decisions to take services away from us

Sack them

Requires a decision by the board to so do, and they all love him.

what's the best mortgage comparison website out there? My 5yr fixed has expired and wondering whether it's worth moving banks for a better deal or just porting across to another fixed with the bank I have.

Thanks

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/best-buys/ ?

The garden is getting blitzed.

Best get the Anderson Shelter built quick then.

Home now on the market, and our offer has been accepted on the place we reaaaaally want.

Time to find a shitload of cash in the next 2 weeks, as we're buying independently of selling, being that was the only way to get our offer accepted.

It's all very exciting.

Online poker?

Anyone has a security gate / grill on their front door? Whlist my home buying dream is parked for the moment, it doesn't stop me from wanting to prevent another break in. For those who didn't know, my flat was broken into before Christmas and now I want to put a gate on the front door, landlady most likely won't pay for it, so I want to know how much these are roughly and offer to pay half to begin with... (would be willing to pay for it all if it's less than a grand all in) They took a lot of stuff and I can't let that happen again.

You should be absolutely fine for <£1000 all in. Not really my remit but we've secured some of our property at work using grilles/gates and the costs always seem pretty reasonable, I'd assume domestic costs might be even lower given you're likely to be talking about standard sizes. A quick look reveals you can buy the standard gates on ebay for <£200, a decent handyman should be able to take care of the installation.

It's reasonably invasive though, biggest difficulty might be getting the landlady to agree to installation rather than agreeing to meet the costs. I had exactly the same feeling myself after getting broken into in a rented place, desperately wanted to increase the security but ultimately it was all out of my hands. Very frustrating. Good luck!

Offer accepted on a flat. Things suddenly feel very, very serious. Bye bye savings.

Congrats dude. There're a lot of escape points before the final push. Call your lawyer every few days and try not to freak out. LETS DO THIS THING

But hello free money as your house price rockets and earns more than you do.

Possibly.

Depending on brexit and trump and all that.

I've found the money that I've earned more useful.

Still, not knocking buying property. It's given me somewhere to live for the last 20 years.

But eventually you can sell your house and be rich.

So long as you don't need to live anywhere at that point.

You could get a campervan or something.

Also I've not been posting here about it but after having an offer accepted in December and the guy pulling out and coming back in no less than three (!) times in the interim I think I'm finally at the point where we're going to get a date for transfer. I'm not counting my chickens - buying my first place is a really emotive thing for me and it's been doing my nut in with this guy pulling out all the time - but christ it's so close.

It sounds like rather long-winded sex. Hope it's worth the wait.

Cheers mate. Absolutely not freaking; got whiskey to numb the fear. :) Good luck with yours too!

Especially the freeholder is an ass. My landlady had to pay for the cost of replacing the doors after the break in because of issues with the building insurance, that's cost her £3000 (emergency locksmith and next day carpenter don't come cheap). I am not hopeful the freeholder will agree to it... it has something to do with the structure of the building therefore the freeholder will have to agree, right?

As for the size, my front door is a little narrower than standard, so it would probably be more expensive as things would have to be custom made...