Owning your own home

as the Liquidated damages can be set at a punitive level.

cf. Enforceability of penalty clauses

Im pretty sure the program forms part of the JCT Minor Works contract so this is what the Contractor has agreed to work to. Not only does it make them concentrate on lagging, it also gets them to put a little bit more thought into it initially.

Cheers for all the help and advice fellas...

Didnt even know about commercial consultant's

And who are the Kensington Green chaps?

And @chrisbmx116 @bq gives good advice - especially on speccing everything out and making sure you're happy with stuff. If you're not you absolutely should be able to ask for it to be redone. That's the point of the retention money!

I'd be a bit careful about this:

Project manage it yourself or pay one, and hire different specialists yourself.

Unless you have an amazing project manager that has the potential to be a massive PITA.

Be aware that project managing it yourself in that scenario is not compatible with a full time job!

@Howard I wouldn't want to pay a bonus for something being done by a certain time, I want a job quoted, estimated and done well.

Well, yeah. Precisely.

Hmm.

Agreed level set out, agreed and signed up to via JCT.

Always had arguments over what constituted delays in the program etc but the acceptance of the principal is pretty uniform.

And who are the Kensington Green chaps?

Did my place and BQ's. I think he got them on a bad day - well, bad months. We were having issues at the time too getting them to complete our snagging.

Our place took a long time but it was technically very complex and the bath was problematic because nobody had actually quite done anything like that before. But they ultimately rose to the challenge.

You'd be welcome to come round and have a look at ours and I can give you an honest assessment of what they're like to work with and some tips.

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing... I assume retention money is an amount of money held back until inspection/completion?

Speccing isn't an issue, I'm going to go fucking nuts on details, down to where I want tiles to line up.

PM wise, my jobs kinda part time, or rather not too demanding, and I like things done my way, so might step. up to the challenge, although I am prob under estimating things and would be more suited just doing sign off and things like that.

Assume you kicked your place off by commissioning an architect?

I dont think you need an architect as much as you need a commercial consultant or QS in old money.

We hired a QS - complete waste of money tbh.

Yep. Knowing what you want - exactly what you want - and how you want it done is important.

Yes. Studio 304 - https://www.studio-304.com/ - who actually found us Kensington Green when we had to sack the first set of builders!

PM wise, my jobs kinda part time

Jelly. I presume you have no building knowledge though - that could be an issue.

pretty much. how do you all think anything gets built?

only hand the deposit back after everything is accounted for

How easy would it be to get that info? Does a landlord have the legal right to get council tax and bills status of their tenants?

Cheers for the replies... would be up for boring you over a pint at Easts sometime... very kind of you to offer a tour too! Love the look of your place and would be up for that once the wheels are rolling on the project, or at least started...

Studio 304 noted and saved, will get in touch...

No real building knowledge, but not afraid to read up - example: when I had my kitchen refitted the gas guy wouldn't refit my hob as it didnt have a FDU or whatever, but I double checked and it was fine due to it being a pre some year model and a refit not a swap, even had to get written confirmation from Gas Safe themselves before he believed me.

Thanks again!

edit: this is pretty much what I would be after internally, doesn't strike me as rocket appliances, or something I would need an architect for as it's more aesthetics? Taking a wall out and sinking a floor is something I would expect a builder to have knowledge of? https://www.studio-304.com/projects/hollybank-avenue?index=8

The tenants have to give you proof that the accounts are closed before they get their deposit back.

They could try complaining about this but it’s a pretty reasonable precondition.

I suppose the problem becomes what happens if an agency handle that and make a pigs ear of it...I’d want that under my control for good reason.

to give you my experience, note I am not London based, so might make some difference...

I have just done a complete refurb on an 1800s house, and when I say complete refurb I mean it, literally took it back to four walls, no roof, well actually 3 walls...

We didn't use an architect, as like you we knew exactly what we wanted, so we used a building design agency to turn our hand drawn plans into plans that could be submitted for planning and also to turn our vague statements of "lots of insulation here" into an exact specification for both building control sign off and for contractors to quote against.

We employed a medium size building company, and tasked them to use their own sub contractors, although we agreed with us having power of veto over any of the trades we didn't like (we did this once with a plasterer we didn't rate). We didn't have a project manager, but I work in a log cabin the garden so spent a lot of time either answering questions or spotting someone just about to do something stupid and stopping them.

In terms of buying stuff, we did some buying direct and some got our builder to buy direct, for example he was able to get paint about 20% cheaper than we were able to, so we gave him a list and he bought it.

We didn't have any penalty clauses in place, and to be honest we took a much more laid back approach to it all, doing things like moving walls as the build went on, was quite nice to have a completely blank floor and put planks of wood on the floor to sort out the layout, we changed it a bit from what was on paper, for much the better.

One thing I didn't do and wish I did, was to include something that meant I could call them back at set time periods after the work has finished to do further tudy up work as things like plaster cracks appear, I am currently relying on the builder being sensible and sorting these, but would prefer something in writing.

Wondered when you'd pop up and show off about your bloody castle smiley face wink think to indicate I meant that in a jovial nature

But seriously, thanks for the input, I imagine thats the route I would go down. Almost want a meet with an architect to run them through my plans to see if they could improve, maybe a consultancy, incase there is anything I've missed/not maximised upon.

Was your guy able to get high end paints cheaper? I usually get Little Green or F&B and 20% off those across a whole house would be a few quid but I imagine those brands keep tight control of their prices and suppliers...

Ha! sadly my bloody castle is currently surrounded by a inadvertent moat, but that is what happens when you have a house built on 10ft of non-draining clay, but it does keep the riff raff out.

Well our builder bought pretty much everything through one of the merchants (he played them all off each other), we did use a very niche specialist paint for the outside at £150 for 15 litres, and he was able to get 5% knocked off, which helped a few bit when you need as many litres as we did. One massive saving he was able to get us was on bathroom stuff, he got everything 15% cheaper than we could, but on kitchens the only ones he could get cheap was howdens and we wanted slightly better than that. So guess it will be case by case and will depends on what volumes he buys of the things you are looking for.

Actually that does remind me, we made sure that we went with a builder who had done lots of work of the type we were undertaking, he described our project as small and normal (!) and pretty much knew what to do whenever something that look catastrophic to us happened (like walls falling down, which happened on a daily basis to start with...) so def make sure you find someone who has done the type of work\ level of finish lots of times.

I would get some sort of design help, even if it isn't an architect, you will need someone to draw up plans for building control sign off probably anyway, and they may also be able to give you leads on good contractors. Also if you do need building control, there are two options you can either go local authority or a third party.

We ended up going with a third party (JHAI), I have very mixed feelings about this, I think building control should really be done by the local authority as the conflict of interest seems obvious to me. We went with the third party because we trusted our builder, and we needed a little bit of flexibility in places (head height over stairs) which he signed off without even measuring... But if I wanted to make sure that everything was done to the letter then I would go with LA.

Thanks for the tip, I'll remember to do that.

We aren't bothering with agency, just did it with Openrent so I'll have all the control in the world.

You need to be really careful with the deposit stuff - look up deposit ‘prescribed information’ and follow the latest procedure.

Yep, on it. Openrent have so far made the process ridiculously easy.

That’s good - hope it goes well

So... after splitting up and selling my house, and spending time between a friend's sofa and my mam's house in Teesside, I bought a flat. (The one where I had to wait an exrta day to complete 'cos of max £20k a day bank transfer).

2 years I thought. I'll stop about 2 years max. Spend a bit of cash moving kitchen and getting new bathroom. Probably meet a moneyed woman, then move out into her place and sell it.

Nope. 2 days.

I'm selling it.

In every viewing I did, there was zero noise in the flat. But after just one night in the flat, it's a pure noise trap and unlivable for me (working from home as a writer). I know, I know. I should have expected some noise...but not this much. I'm pretty sure the people above and next door are frickin' students. Basically, it's like everyone is wearing rollerskates and never sit down. And when they talk, they talk into huge megaphones which they hold to my walls.

Gutted. last thing I needed.

Now. Contacted mgt company about putting carpet in above. But still selling. Have painted, wallpapered, new electrical sockets, painted skirting, new flooring in bathroom and kitchen. Get it back on market next week and hope to bloody hell that I just make a few grand on it.

This is something Im really worried about with buying a flat in London. Noise doesnt bother me, I live in a 30s arc deco block creaky floors, can hear every car in the courtyard, get brought into reality every morning by the guy above me taking a piss.

My girlfriend however gets hugely stressed by it and is dying to get our arses into gear buying.

This is something Im really worried about with buying a flat in London.

Would you like to buy ours? It's brilliant in this respect. Top floor, L shape, lovely quiet neighbors and there's a canal on the other side of the road.

where is it and does it cost less than 360k