Owning your own home

That doesn't look too bad from here either!
Well done

You’ll soon have to pick your crew

The Real Crouch End Appreciation Society
Or
Not The Crouch End Appreciation Society

up til 11.30 last night finishing painting the bathroom.. estate agent round at midday for photos .. cutting it fine. Still got a ride to work, tired af now. Hopefully magic will happen and we will have a buyer ASAP so we can make progress as we have found the house we want to buy!

Could be a more realistic price. In this market (if London) most people will be looking for a discount. I'd price that discount in now.

Indeed.

Real prices for London right now having researched for 6 months before I started looking 4 weeks ago (with a lot of research in the 2 months prior):

• £500 sq/ft = total revamp needed, zone 3+, probably ex-council
  
• £600 sq/ft = average quality, zones 2-5 (farther out gets you garden or drive, closer in just gets you average quality)
  
• £700 sq/ft = above average quality, zones 2-4 (with few downsides, i.e. lots of light, space is laid out well, long lease, no major detriments)
  
• £800 sq/ft = excellent quality, zones 2-3 (marble bathrooms start appearing at this price, the space is really nice - anyone who looks at the photos and floorplan swoons)
  
• £900 sq/ft = luxury, zones 2-3
  
• Above £950 sq/ft = overpriced and untenable at the moment, or deep into zone 1
  
  

I've no idea what you've got @Silly_Savage but those prices are what I observed places selling for. It's a huge range of value, but the prices reflect the quality of each place and pricing across London is far more consistent than I thought it would be (within those observed bands).

The place I've almost bought is £686 sq/ft in Crouch End, probably should have been around £725 sq/ft but the sellers were driven by circumstances to sell fast and that played in our favour... but of the 4 places we looked, 2 were being sold for less than they were purchased for (the worst of these was a 10% drop in value), 1 was being sold fast due to circumstances (the one we are involved in) and only the last was what the seller wanted (and it's been on the market 10 months and re-listed twice with drops already and is still on the market this morning).

I'm not selling, but if I were I'd be wary of staying on the market too long and so long as I wasn't left too much out I would be trying to get it done quickly.

Heres a potential warning for anyone going through this proccess

Finally completed on this https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-54108750.html Friday after a 7 month wait from the Sale / Offer acceptance.

The whole chain was perfect at the start, then our buyer started to drag there heels a little, then a bit more, then when pushed went on holiday for 5 weeks... When they returned from holiday they deemed to tell us that one of the partners (recent) divorce was messy and in fact they were having a spot of bother getting money freed by the ex wife.

So.

When we sold we could have sold to 1 of 4 buyer, 1 was willing to pay beyond asking, we went with these and asked EA were there any negatives with the offer? they knew about but didn't tell us about the divorce thing.

Long story short, ask about the buyers relationship. Weve bought and sold loads over the last 20 years and were still flummoxed by this.

Good luck to those buying and selling.

Eye lyke your new gaff lardy. You prob don't need to but if you did a loft conversion that place would be enormous by London standards

Next door have done loft and a big ass extension and its huge. Alas, no more money in the purse for us...

We live in a small building with only 7 flats all privately own (3 of us live here and 4 buy to let, all freehold). Buy to let owners have been mostly ok up to now (could tell you some stories, but not relevant right now) The 3 of us who live here run the building as a society and keep service charges and expenses low (lowest in the area) at no extra cost for all (we 3 do this voluntarily)

Mostly smooth sailing until the owner of Flat 1, who also owns a local chicken shop, started making copies of our garage gate (we all share a parking space in the back) to his employees. This was already spoken about in a recent owners meeting and all the owners agreed (he did too) that as the space is limited we should all subscribe a one vehicle per flat rule. So far so good but...

The greedy fucker (Flat 1) keeps using the shared space as his private business parking ( apparently something has changed in his usual public parking area) issuing fraudulent key copies and parking up to 2 extra cars (his and one of his staff) with no prior consent... He is already renting the property (doesn't live here) and his tenants already have one car.

Any advice of how to legally deal with this guy once and for all? Today I stood my ground and sent one of his guys (a first timer) back to look for street parking among shouts... but I'm afraid we need a more solid tactic

Could it be as simple as changing the locks and issuing new keys to the rest of the flat and tell flat 1 to not give a copy to the landlord? I assume the cost would be split between all the flats so arsey landlord may refuse to pay.

We already thought of those kind of options (keys, notes, removing tire pressure...) but we rather set some solid rules and precedents. Specially seeing how vulnerable our little utopia seems to be to the other (buy to let) owners' greed!

we rather set some solid rules and precedents

He's already shown that he doesn't care.

@Bernhard you don't know if he's let out the car parking space with the flat. It's fine - unless the lease has something that prevents it - to rent the flat out but continue using the car parking space.

@frankohara allocated car parking spaces to specific plates and enforcement is the only way to deal with this.

Cars eh?!

People! and cars too! But mostly people!

Yes, I believe the parking and the flat are both rented to the same person. I can ask them tonight. They are nice.

Re: Flat owner. Him parking here, now and then, fine. Our backyard turning into his business parking, no thanks! I guess the question is: can anyone with a key (no matter how they got it) access our building if he has already rented both the flat and garage? does this apply to external gated areas? Jus as a reference: https://assetgrove.co.uk/know-your-rights-landlord-access/

Thinking I will start by finding out what the letting agreement is, is landlord reg. mandatory in the uk? where can I check if he is reg?

Figure out if garage is rented with the flat already and then:

https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/residents/make-a-complaint/
and/or:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/

Re: Flat owner. Him parking here, now and then, fine.

Erm. You could be entirely wrong on this. The lease should define restrictions if any, and if it doesn't, he can park there any time he likes. I think :)

Don't be that guy in the bastard neighbours thread.

I guess the question is: can anyone with a key (no matter how they got it) access our building?

Any lawyers in the room?

Like vampires - only with permission. It depends if the lessees are granting permission, and if that permission is greater than they are authorised to provide. What does the lease say? What dictats have the management co / directors issued on this?

The key itself is a bit of a red herring because it's the permission that's being granted that is the problem. In the same way that a resident might feel entitled to let a guest park there or rent out their parking space or let airbnb guests park there...they'll find a way, key or no key.

So you need to issue allocated spaces and buy in enforcement. And charge for it because your leaseholder / SOFH is a dick.

IANAL btw.

Fair play, hope you get this sorted amicably, sounds like a right PITA

Hah, I almost viewed this. Just around the corner from me. Guess I'll take it off my saved properties :'(

@Howard @Velocio @dst

Thanks for your thoughts, not in London, and I don't have loads of research on prices in the area, but have obviously looked at recent. My gut is to go with the guy and price a little conservatively as anecdotally prices have stalled a little. Also he can get it on this week and we're in a hurry.

Don't be that guy in the bastard neighbours thread.

I won't, I promise :)
I will try to look at the lease and the contract, see what's on there

We are looking at quotes to build an extension. after reading some t&cs we asked for JCT homeowners contract instead...this is the reply we got. xxx are the company

Hi dst,
We are unable to work to a JCT contract. As per the terms and conditions that Vicky sent through, the contractual setup that xxx work to is as follows: xxx are a project Management company and we arrange for contractors to work directly for yourselves. You make stage payments into a Client Deposit Account and you entrust xxx to manage your funds on your behalf. xxx release your funds to the contractors once we have checked each element of the project has been carried out to a high standard. Once the project has been finished and all invoices paid for, whatever sum is left in the Client Deposit Account is then transferred to xxx and this is our project management fee. xxx provide an overriding 10 year guarantee on the works and this forms part of the contract.

Any thought on this would be appreciated. They were the front runners but after this look to be out of the process.

What rights does the lease grant re: parking?

yourselves

run a mile

@duncs hello neighbour.... moved from the other end of charlton for more space.

Once the project has been finished and all invoices paid for, whatever sum is left in the Client Deposit Account is then transferred to xxx and this is our project management fee.

Sounds like a huge incentive to use cheap contractors.

I assume if you read the small print you'll discover that as the contractors are working directly for you, xxx will have no liability for any fuck ups.

I assume if you read the small print you'll discover that as the contractors are working directly for you, xxx will have no liability for any fuck ups.

Yeah this.

10 year warranty they won't be around 10 minutes if something goes wrong.

Can 100% relate. Massive anti-climax!!!