Owning your own home

Out of curiosity, for where you have a house split into a couple of flats and a third party freeholder who is responsible for external maintenance costs (roof gutters, painting, etc)? Is it a case of the freeholder does it but just recharges it to the leaseholders in the flats?

Is it a case of the freeholder does it but just recharges it to the leaseholders in the flats?

Depends on the terms of the lease. I'm assuming yes though.

Lols, we had a house in London and chose to leave. I wouldn’t commute 90mins each way every day but people do do it. Most people who commute only do a couple of days a week if they can help it.

It’s entirely possible to get tired of London but not life!

balanced out by the making of new like minded friends

They're lying. They haven't made any friends and are even more lonely than before.

@dbr the freeholder is able to claim half of the uplift less costs from any value adds to the property. For example if you extend into the loft (after he gives permission) and then he asks for the property to be revalued, he can then claim part of the uplift in value. Definitely get the share of at least. £3k is a ballache, but at least you maintain some control.

I’ll bite (again).

It’s taken a while but we have a pretty solid group of friends after 18 months. Most of them also recently moved out of London, obviously.

Thanks for the all the advice. About to have a call with lease-advice.org but it looks like I'll have to ask him to put his toys back in the pram and buy the freehold together, as a company unfortunately.

lease-advice.org - "Good luck, try to get on." haha

You know what, I'm just bitter I had to leave. If I'd had an extra £60-75k I'd have fought to stay.

I do like having a decent garden, sheds and an outhouse. Ironically my other half's commute reduced in time. But I miss food, cycling as a means of transport, getting home early if I want to and basically living in what ime is on balance the best city there is.

They are fucking useless.

Being a 50% shareholder in a company that owns the freehold is absolutely fine. It's not the end of the world. It's much better than having some shiny suited shitbag buy your home out from under you.

All queries are now answered and exchanging first thing in the morning. Should be in by next weekend.

The downstairs neighbours have just put theirs on the market if anyone fancies a Clapton 2 bed with excellent neighbours

How much just out of interest? We moved to Walthamstow as couldn't afford to buy in Clapton at the time but interested if we could now

Is it really worth having lots of extra room vs extra time?

Time > money > room for me every time.

This sounds like exactly what I’m after!

Think I’ll have to settle for floors not on the same level, guess it won’t kill me.

With everyone’s tales it would be stupid to try and think I could find a way to make it work, but I wouldn’t put it past me to try...

I think the idea is probably that the space is permanent whereas the lack of time is temporary. Obviously it doesn’t always work out like that!

Could you have a step up into the room (then have the floor one level)?

I’d prob just have a step into the shower, I was prob focusing too much on the small details.

We've had an offer accepted on our house, and we've put an offer in on the one that we want.

It still doesn't feel very real and I'm still not convinced we're making the right decision, but it's quite exciting.

Is there a standard order of operations for buying and selling? I've only ever bought before.

1. Put place on market
   
2. Receive offer
   
3. Start looking to buy
   
4. Make offer
   
5. Instruct solicitor
   etc.
   
   

Do you use the same solicitor for buying and selling? What are the gotchas?

Or 3,4,5,1,2 just depends on circumstances. I would start looking as soon as you know you want to move.
We used same solicitor for buying and selling, not sure why you would not. I would always want a solicitor I could physically get to easily, even if it cost a bit more. If you sell and buy through same ea ask for a discount.

Congrats?

Where's the new place?

I obviously don't know the property involved but in general the Clapton - Walthamstow gap certainly hasn't reduced.

We could buy a three bed house in Walthamstow for the price of our large one bed in Clapton. And actually we're pretty tempted to do just that this year.

Dibs bath if splitting.

Do it!

It’s up for £475k

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/50099469