Owning your own home

heehee. excellent.

Genuine lol

Our situation was particularly difficult to figure out, even the solicitors got it wrong. In the end we had to speak to HMRC directly and get an email confirmation of exactly where we stood. Thankfully they're email saved us over 10k :)

Is it normal that estate agents won't give you the time of day (in respect of viewing for sale properties) if your own house isn't on the market?

It's a bit chicken and egg. We are only going to move if we find somewhere we want to move to. There is no particular imperative. But it seems that we can't even get a viewing because our place isn't currently for sale.

I guess Brexit will sort it out.

We saw a few places the other weekend - were very upfront that our place wasn’t on the market and they didn’t seem unduly bothered. Think that the things we were looking at had been sitting on their books for a while though.

Yes, you're not proceedable.

Just tell them you’re FTB

We've just a somewhat similar experience.

Some agents were more than happy to show us a few places (though most of them had been on a while), but equally there were some that were not interested until our was on. One even wanted us to show a decision in principle, deposit, and flat on the market before allowing us to view anything.

Yeah, it does seem to depend a lot on how much interest there is in the place you want to view. Which I guess is pretty understandable - EAs want turnover.

Apparently there are already 4 offers on the place we wanted to look at.

I'm leaning towards the conclusion that it's too much hassle to move.

We've seen a few, some of them new instructions, and our place isn't on the market.

We've had a few in to value our place though so they want to keep us sweet to try and get that job.

Does anyone want to plant a small hedge?

I've put one in today (a big one) and ended up with 12 leftover potted privet plants. My sums were a bit wrong.

There were about a fiver each from Hedges Direct and should be 60-90cm, though they're all at the lower end.

PM if you're interested.

2 Attachments

Personally I'd bung a few more in there. I followed the planting instructions for my hedge and whilst its come on well, I think it could have done with another 2 plants to thicken it out a bit more. As long as you feed and water well it shouldn't be a problem.

can any east london folk recommend a roofer who could repair / replace a flat roof for me ? any pictures of work done would be welcome

@Tomo187 did you just call the help line?

I did. It's as frustrating as any help line but worth it.

Great, will get some snacks and give them a call. Just out of curiosity were you also a FTB and nonFTB?

We were not FTB as my partner has a flat abroad but as its worth less than 40k GBP we didn't have to pay the top bracket.

Would be curious to see the outcome of this as we were FTB and NON-FTB in October last year, with previous house already sold, and ended up paying standard rate.

Will tune in for the update!

Our buyers surveyor coming tomorrow- ours is a 4 year old house with 6 years left on the guarantee. Just had our offer accepted on a 1930s bungalow near Bath :)
Having a few palpitations about the cost as it’s double what we paid for the house we’re selling but we blasted the mortgage so have a nearly half the price of the new house deposit. Scary stuff- just hope stamp duty comes down before we sign on the dotted line. Eek

Fingers crossed for you.
I've always liked the idea of living in a bungalow.

Have UTFS a bit, but...

Pondering moving from house to flat
Flat is ground floor of a Victorian villa (4 flats/floors total)

Freeholder is Greenwich Council
113yrs left on the lease
Service charge £450 p.a.
Ground rent £10 p.a.

Haven't seen the lease paperwork yet, but all seems fairly low risk as far as bastard landlord stuff goes so far...

Anything specifically I should be asking...
Have asked about pets (don't have one, but might in future).
Should ask about subletting (again, don't plan to, but might if things change etc)

Check to see what the ground rent terms will be in 50 (etc) years time. Very unlikely with your freeholder as the council, but some double every ten years, which would end up being a significant amount towards the end of the lease.

Find out who your managing agents (i.e. the people you pay your service charge to) will be. Google them. Worth seeing what their reviews are like.

If it's a flat you have more rights as a leaseholder, weirdly, so the remainder is pretty low risk given the viper pit Leasehold is.

Have a look into what major works have been done and/or are going to be done. Just recently got a bill for my flat for £4K for repair and redecoration work on my block from 15/16.

Very good point. A service charge of £500 a year is very low so there is clearly not going to be a reserve fund for such things.

20 min of wait and no joy, only FTB get discounts. Did anyone else in the same situation here get a different response? Just want to confirm before we settle for standard Stamp Duty 🙃