Owning your own home

you are going to poison my coffee arent you?

Up yours, Gokarn.

Thought about it and bought a sunshade sail thing instead for about £50...

Yeah. Get a kookaburra shade off Primrose or similar.

you need to make sure your notices are in order.

you issue a correct notice, they have 14 days to respond. if no response, a dispute is deemed to have arisen and you sent them a '10 day letter' which gives them 10 days to appoint a surveyor. if they do not, you need to appoint one on their behalf.

if you do not get this right, the whole process is invalid and they can injunct.

Yeah - spotted and liked those. Are they ok to keep up all year, assume they need some beefy cabling / attachment

Cheers, I wasn't aware of the 10 day letter.

My issue though is that no-one will even respond to let me know who the notice should go to. I suspect sending it to the Mayor and Burgesses (as named on the title deed) will be a guarantee of nothing happening.

The absolute incompetence of the council makes me fear that I'm going to have to delay the build because no-one has the courtesy to respond to emails or calls.

They whip about in the wind a fair bit, so a strong fixing for each corner is a good idea.

They're also very waterproof which means they can hold water and sag in the rain.

And they fade a bit in the sun.

We changed ours for a new one after 3 years. We take it down late Septemberish and put it up maybe April.

Loft conversion starts on Monday.
Party wall agreements all in place.
Building control informed.
Drawings all signed off.
Loft and first floor emptied ready for the ceilings to be dropped.

And... what a touch... some NCT pals are going on holiday for a spell so we can house sit for them just around the corner.

Reckon it will come in at £62k.
Contract says 12 weeks. PM says max 10, could be as quick as 6 with a following wind.

2 Attachments

What's the square footage of that? Just under 400 ?how come you didn't have the smaller bedroom come out over the outrigger on the otherside or have I misinterpreted the drawing ?

who is doing it?

@princeperch Think you might have misread the drawing.

Hey @amey Company called LoftLife. They seem decent. But then I said that about Ben Reed and that turned out to be a fucking disaster.

Yeh I see now the smaller bedroom comes out over the outrigger. Looks a good extension and ensuite is a good size too.

that's the point of the act. it is an enabling act that allows you to get shit done, even in the face of unresponsive/difficult neighbours. if you sent the correct notices and letters, after a month you can just appoint a surveyor under s10.4 and crack on.

BRM - putting the 'party' into party walls...

I'd like to get our front path retiled. Had a quote for just north of £1k which seems extortionate, considering it's only about 4 m/sq.

It's identical to the below pic but with approximately 2/3 of the tiles missing and rough concrete showing on the exposed areas, so needs to be resurfaced first; preferably at a slight incline so water runs off.
Any recommendations for people in east that can do this? I'd do it myself but don't have the time.

@WjPrince

6 weeks seems doable given good weather.

Neighbours had a very similar one done this year and the actual work was very quick, as usual with these things the scaffolding etc. took much of the time.

£1k must be lols for 4m2. How long would that take? 1day to prep and 1day to lay and tidy?

Looks like you're in a Warner flat - assume you'll be sharing the cost with your neighbour since it's a shared path?

There abouts. I think they said 3 days; re-surfacing, tiling, grouting. Although I'm sure it can be done in 2...

Going by what we've had done previously, I imagined it should be more like £500-600.

Yeah, I'll call the managers for the other flat about sharing the cost as it will make the place look way better which is good for everyone but not holding my breath... They generally seem happy doing the shittest-job possible with anything.
I'm gonna paint the door gentrification grey and tart-up the window sills at the same time.

Building survey has come back great, seven of the concrete stumps under the house will need to be replaced, so either the seller will have to get them fixed or knock the cost off the sale price... The rest of the structure is in tip top condition, very relieved... And excited! #fingersstillcrossed

is material included? if not £330 - £500 a day for labour seems steep.

The quote was all inclusive. I know for a fact the tiles aren't that expensive...

Decent porcelain ones can be. OK, mine were more fancy but the tiles alone for the hallway I did were over a grand, and the surface prep took me several days and involved a lot of difficult and messy labour. I'd definitely charge over a grand to do it for someone else.

We used LoftLife. PM was absent most of the time, but the two guys doing the work were top notch.

They completed on time, which was good as baby number 2 was due two weeks after they finished.

Only criticism was that their plumber failed to test that the pipe he connected the new toilet too was atttached to the sewer. That was a smelly discovery, but they were prompt in rectifying it.