Owning your own home

Small high street EA, the same ones I bought it through. Apart from lying about it when she forgot to drop forms off to me, and hoping I'd not notice when she did it the next day, they've been pretty good considering it was 1 week turnaround from initial valuation to viewings.

Re. mortgages: is there any argument for a shorter period (currently looking at 30 years) over the longest reasonably possible and overpaying if affordable? That seems to give the most flexibility to my mind.

Longer with overpaying is much better, gives you flexibility if your circumstances change. Just have to resist the temptation of slacking off on the overpayments

Agree, we've done exactly that - set up the overpayment by direct debit and it works a treat. If we ever had a lean period, it's nice to know we could just cut the payments right back.

Just depends if you have any more productive uses for the money, but yeah ^^

Can't find a replacement shower mixer cartridge for the life of me, despite hours of internet browsing.

Am I really going to have to replace the shower to stop the leak? Or will a plumber have more luck sourcing one?

Yes, longer with overpayment but watch out for overpayment limits. In my fixed period I can only overpay 10% a year of the outsanding amount without incurring early repayment fees. That's not a reason not to have a longer mortgage but might be a reason not to take a longer fixed period than you expect to need.

Yeah cheers, I did the maths and 10% would be a pretty steep overpayment. Reckon we'll manage 5% though.

Have you tried these people, they are pretty good
https://www.showerdoc.com

Yeah, sent pictures to no avail and browsed seemingly every item on their website.

There are no details of the shower anywhere in the house paperwork so I have no idea what brand it is anyway.

is there any argument for a shorter period (currently looking at 30 years) over the longest reasonably possible and overpaying if affordable? That seems to give the most flexibility to my mind.

None whatsoever as far as I can tell, provided it doesn't take you past retirement age etc.

By overpaying you're effectively reducing the term, but on your own terms. Typically you won't overpay by more than 10% a year and incur an overpayment penalty. If you're getting (say) a 5y fix, this all only really applies for the first 5y because you'd typically remortgage after that anyway.

Yeah cheers, I did the maths and 10% would be a pretty steep overpayment. Reckon we'll manage 5% though.

The overpayment limit is generally 10% of the outstanding mortgage balance at the start of the calendar year, not 10% of the principal every year. (It will depend on your mortgage provider though, worth checking.)

So year 1 you pay back 5% of the outstanding sum but by the start of year 5 you've paid back at least 20% of the original sum which means your overpayments will be 5/80 = 6.25%

Paying back 7% a year is roughly where you'd get into trouble in the 5th year (assuming that's the limit for ERCs): 7 / (100-(4*7)) = 9.72%

I'm going to run into this problem as I'm on an interest-only mortgage (5 year fixed and I've got 10 years left in total) but it's manageable by sticking excess into savings and dumping that into the mortgage when I renegotiate in 5 years (and I'll make sure I get something that has suitable early repayment charge terms or something like an offset mortgage for those final 5 years).

That’s a pita, they were recommended by the plumbers who came to look at ours. We have something similar but it is hanging on in at the moment but when it goes it will need a new shower unit in a particularly stupid size and shape thanks to arsehole builders

It's not in Whitehall by any chance?

Had offer accepted. Signing deal tomorrow. Mucho nervoso. Have to sell current house with some profit or we're screwed.

It looks like our upstairs neighbours are going to do a loft extension - as we are currently partly responsible for the roof, does this mean they will take full responsibility (ie cost) of doing it?

Do you mean the new roof? (yes). Or do you mean going forward (presumably the deeds will stay the same and you'll still be liable, in which case you'd want to make sure it wasn't shoddy!).

Who owns the property? Do you each have a share of freehold?

I'd suggest that in return for you giving them permission for the extension, in return they should be responsible for roof repairs going forward.

I'd suggest that in return for you giving them permission for the extension, in return they should be responsible for roof repairs going forward.

@Well_is_it - ^ So much this.

However, if you don't have SOF, then prepare for a rough ride.

Anyone have experience of Yopa?

Had one of their EAs over, seemed like a nice guy with a lot of experience, taking him on face value.

Then they kinda cocked up the valuation stuff, sent me someone else's valuation

Kinda gave up at that point. They never chased. But then neither did KFH.

Anyone got any plumber/bathroom fitter recommendations for N16 kind of way?

Had another leak last month so we need to replace all the old lead pipes, which means we also need to get a new bathroom. Haven't got a huge budget, but the bathroom is tiny so hoping it won't be crazy expensive.

We’re leaseholders so they would have had to get permission from out freeholders. Just wondering what the deal is in terms of who’s responsible going forward in these cases.

I ended a selling agreement with an EA once for my flat, and on me arriving at their office to collect my keys, they gave me the keys of the owners of two doors down. I realised they weren't my keys straight away, but they insisted they were mine.

Got my keys eventually after much insisting that I knew what my keys looked like. Pretty shocking that they were going to let me walk out of the door with keys to someone else's house with door number info attached.

They kept calling afterwards for "keep in touch" calls. Don't think I'll be using their services again...

The terms of your lease won't magically change when the freeholder, by proxy, adds the extension. You'll still be responsible for what your lease defines.

Which is probably shared cost of maintenance of the roof.

This makes you a stakeholder in your neighbour's extension building as Aggi has highlighted, but because you aren't SOF then your control in this situation is limited to statutory and whatever is allowed by your lease.

What kind of property? How many more leaseholders? If I were you I'd try to buy the freehold out before the work kicks off then block the work until the leases can be sorted more in your favour.

Yes. I'll PM you his details.

He's good but no idea what his availability is like.