Owning your own home

'hideously' white, shurley?

There's already going to be a lease for the upper flat I'd imagine, even if the owner also owns the freehold of the building.

i'm working late-ish most of this week. hows friday looking?

check yer electro letterz

Apparently they'll create a 125 year lease (not including the loft space) with the sale and then offer to sell the freehold to us and them downstairs, at an additional premium, with a surveyor assessing the value of the loft space.

Negotiate now to buy the whole freehold yourself.

Then if you want to you can sort out sharing it with downstairs once you're in.

It'll cost them and you loads of extra solicitor dollar to create a lease, then even more to sell the freehold to you. All a waste of time and money if you can sling them a few more thousand now to buy the freehold.

👍🏻 that's interesting.

Bear in mind though that if you are needing a mortgage, most lenders won't consider a freehold flat, they will want a charge on the leasehold.

Share of freehold / ownership of the freehold isn't such a problem, but almost all mainstream lenders won't consider if there is not going to be a lease at completion.

I've been hearing odd bangs from the communal hallway in the last week or so, and I had put it down to kids fucking about with the letterbox or something.
However, today I woke up to no power, all fuses blown and water pissing down the wall (over the fuse board) from the shower of the flat upstairs.
Contractors called. Leak fixed, everything dried off and fuses replaced. Email from freeholders telling me everything is fixed.
So I go home and flip the switch back on, cue enormous bang, a shower of sparks and a hallway full of smoke.
It's been shorting out inside the fuse box for at least a week, hence the banging noises, but worryingly its taken this long to actually blow a fuse, and after the big bang and the sparks the fuses are all intact.

yeah i reckon whatever it is, it's fucked.

Freehold flat owner here, mortgaged with Nationwide.

I have a grand total of one viewing for my flat this weekend. Le sigh, probably time for a price drop.

if it's any consolation, we dropped and we have two popping round on saturday.

Got an offer on mine. Have gone back and asked for a bit more.

Leak of unknown origin in our flat. Managing agents responsibility to send plumber to check it or mine? If mine and then it turns out to be coming from upstairs or outside, what then?
I can't see how it can be from my pipes because there's none on the hallway side of bathroom. Presume it's from upstairs but they don't know of any leaks. Could be from under or maybe roof and running inside walls I guess.

Anyway, managing agent fobbed us off, do I insist they send someone or get my own guy? Any good plumbers/builders in West London?

If you are chummy with those above you then have a good poke around their place. Washing machine, shower are usual culprits. A small drip will turn in to a big mess in the place below.

A plumber will have about as much clue as you do as to where the leak is coming from.

Missus asked. Didn't get any conclusive answers.

You've got a place in bow right from memory?

Yarp

If it is external water ingress - eg outside wall/roof then its the *Buildings Management Company's responsibility.

*out of a service charge ?

if you keep getting fobbed off go through their complaints procedure and then here..
https://www.ombudsman-services.org/sectors/property/who-can-we-help

It's the floor, near an internal wall. Most likely is upstairs running along edges (path of least resistance and all that) but I don't want to get people in and then have to argue about insurannce, etc. I'd rather get it done by someone on the books already if you know what I mean?

@greenhell How much did you drop by out of interest?

Mortgage offer from HSBC is £505/month at 1.84% for a five year fixed rate, inclusive of a £15,000 home owner loan to get BRM's mate to finish the painting etc.

Done deal I think- plus I'll keep the monthly payment at the £900 it was initially to pay £400 off the capital each month in addition to the amount paid off from the £505.

I'd take twice as much mortgage and spend the cash on an appreciating asset to hedge against falling house prices.

Maybe something like a classic car.

Notsureifserious.gif

Currently with Nationwide:

Freehold Flats and Maisonettes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
In general we will not accept freehold flats or maisonettes. Where each flat in a block has its own separate freehold title, these are unacceptable securities for us.
However, for most cases initially described as a 'freehold flat' there is usually no lease on the flat to be occupied and the occupier of the flat will be the freeholder of the whole block.
Acceptable

Providing there are no more than four flats in total and the remaining flats are all subject to long leases, the flat without the lease is a suitable freehold security.
Unacceptable

If there are five or more flats in the building, the application must be treated as a commercial proposition.
If the remaining flats are let on shorthold tenancies, the application must be regarded as a commercial proposition.

The above is pretty unusual and dependent on the lease durations of the other flats so generally freehold only flats are far more problematic to mortgage.