Owning your own home

you could still smoke in the Harringay Arms

i'd forgotten about that pub. it did have a bit of an edge to it, especially around chucking out time.

full of rough as guts crouch end OG's who are now sitting on million squid houses. good for them.

Last weekend there was a camp out in the community playing field, like a mini festival for precocious

We had urban maypole in South Tottenham once, does that count?

My opinion is largely based on two of my friends who each have a net worth over £5m+ who chose the area because they like it

Is this @amey and @6pt ?

I don't know house prices but other half reckons the going rate in Crouch End for a whole house is more like 1.7 mil. A house in good condition on our road in Clapton goes for 1.2 so a million definitely seems way too low.

(For anyone who doesn't know we have a 1 bed flat)

Humble brag 😉

Worktops... what we talking? Terrazzo or Corian? Anyone with any experience with either?

My father-in-law has Corian worktops which are 20 years old and still look great. He could get them refinished to jazz them up a bit but can't be arsed.

If I was looking for a long term worktop I would be strongly considering it.

Terrazzo looks nice though.

Speaking of crazy house prices, just saw that a 7 bed house on our street (we live in a 2 bed flat), sold for £4.6m in 2016. This is the Lewisham side of SE10, zone 2/3. The previous owner bought it for £600k in 1995.

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/26-dartmouth-row/london/se10-8aw/20999180

The house next door is rumoured to be going on the market soon. Its identical in every way apart from the fact it has a 1 acre garden with pool and tennis court instead of a "normal" sized garden. Will be interesting to see how much it is valued for because the garden is large enough to build three mansions, each with private road access. My friend, who is a property developer, reckons it'll go for roughly £15m. Not bad for a house in the same borough as Catford :p

Wood

Solid recommendation, cheers for the reply!

I do quite fancy Terrazzo...

Nah, had that, got burnt, wet and mouldy.

Terrazzo

We had terrazzo floors in a house I grew up in (USA, house built in 70s). As it was flooring it was heavily smoothed and polished with zero grip. It also was prone to developing long cracks in the slabs too and they were basically irreplaceable.

I cannot imagine a worse work surface for anything - cooking or workshop.

I cannot imagine a worse work surface for anything

Chocolate?

Like, a giant slab of Dairy Milk. Nightmare if you spill hot water on it and in these current temperatures it would melt. Chips easily.

Jelly would also make a really bad work surface, no stability and dreadful for vegans.

Asbestos? When you come to upgrade your kitchen the removal cost would be very painful. But great heat resistance.

Cheers for the sharing, the concept is a bit of a nod to the type of housing you describe so thats the reasoning, I'll do some more reading about longevity!

So many viewings, loads can't make the open day so have asked to come during inconvenient hours, trying to be accommodating just incase one of those are the guys with $1m to drop on a 2 bed flat and they've just got to have it

Worth mentioning that they slabs we had for flooring were close about 4-5' square so I would imagine smaller slabs would be less prone to cracking, especially if you reinforced the binding medium with reinforcing fibres. It would still be very heavy and quite unforgiving a surface. Some of the comments in the wiki entry re: deterioration due to bonding agent contact with alkali or acids would give me pause for thought for kitchen use as a work surface.

Cracking is the most common form of failure and is typically caused by
the structural system that supports the terrazzo topping rather than
the material itself. Contact with alkalis or acids can deteriorate the
bonding agents used in terrazzo. As the aggregates are often marble
dust which is calcium carbonate, strong acid can also cause
deterioration to the aggregates.

from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrazzo

More modern binders might negate that but you would need to speak to someone more knowledgeable than I.

Worth mentioning that the cracking in our floors was more likely due to movement in the concrete slab foundation underneath, rather than anything to do with surface deterioration.

How far in advance of starting cabling and suspended ceiling works is it reasonable for the managing agent to request payment? It's a section 20/exceptional charge, and a gating factor is that all the flats need to arrange for telephone and cable wiring to be moved before the work can start, but the majority have not done so. At the observed (by me, wandering around with a notebook every month) rate of change all flats will have moved their wiring by this time next year.

We're now on our second "pay or else".

Sound out who else is on their second demand

You're in Walthastow aren't you? Hope you went with stow brothers? Hate viewing places here with them but would defiantly sell with them. One viewing closed bids-let the fight begin!

Sound out who else is on their second demand

I've told the director who is in charge of the residents interaction with the managing agent that I'll pay only when I see that the works are likely to commence within three months.

Had a viewing on Sunday, put an offer in yesterday. Vendor now wants best and final offers in before 12:00 tomorrow with no clues on price (other than the guide price) and number of other bidders.

Think I might just throw some dice.

Bid what you can afford or want to pay. If some mug goes well over best you didn't.

This is going to entirely depend on the wording of your lease I'm afraid. Does it mention a sinking / reserve fund? If not then it may be reasonable to request payment in advance.

Did they begin a Section 20 Major Works process by telling you the specification and giving you 30 days to comment/nominate a contractor? If not, then they're not following Section 20 and you will be allowed to deny any payment over £250.