Owning your own home

Not realistic these days to be honest.

Cheers. A fair bit pricier than I thought, won't be doing one of those.

Construction costs or the whole job? If the latter, then yeah, more than £40k for sure.

Ours ended up around £80k in total. Side extension, downstairs loo, new kitchen, patio and patio doors.

Ahhh yeah, sorry all in. Architects fees, party wall gubbins, build inc vat. Think ours is going to come in at roughly the same.

I found a lot of misinformation out there when I was researching and found a lot of people talked prices sans vat which is bollocks as I am not a business, so why wouldn’t vat be a cost for me? And obvs 20% on top is a decent sized chunk.

You could totally prob get one for 45k if you don’t get architects, design it yourself, project manage it yourself etc. A pal of mine did that as she is bloody fantastic at that kinda thing, but she wasn’t working much at the time so was about to catch the builders using the wrong cement etc. I didn’t have the time for that or the appetite, I wanted people I could trust to get on with it.

Javid is apparently talking about a cut to VAT post no-deal Brexit, might be a small silver lining.

NOW GONE TO A FORUMENGER

Anyone after a free waterbutt thing?

I am straight piping it so will not need it.

Taken from New Cross

Potential dibs

I work full time with no working from home option so that probably wouldn't work.

Surprised how costly it is compared to a loft conversion. Guess there's a lot more building involved.

Removal / replacement of supporting wall isn’t cheap I guess

There is a hell of a lot more building involved.

Added to that costs only become predictable once you're out of the ground. A couple of years ago I was working on an extension and refurb project in West London, the groundworkers were sinking the foundations for the extension when they found a water main running through the back garden. This is not uncommon as after the war the priority for the water board was repairing and covering up services quickly and they often weren't mapped. The project had to be put on hold while Thames water got their act together to inspect, survey and map the water main which took weeks the cost of which had to be met by the client. It consumed their entire £30k contingency. It is still better than the other problem you occasionally get left over from the war; finding unexploded munitions.

A lot of less scrupulous contractors will add a fairly large sum to the cost of groundworks to cover the fact they are unpredictable but then pocket the extra if all goes well.

It may be possible to fill in a side return for less than stated if you are not after open plan areas but given that you are already thinking of skylights I'd assume this isn't for you.

I've looked at woodland, I saw lots of For Sale signs in Dorset a year or so ago.
About £5k an acre, which I thought wasn't too bad.
Looked for something more local but no joy

I like the idea of owning some woods, but I'd want a pump track and some dirt jumps in it, and some maple trees for free syrup. And that all seems like effort.

Like this?

1 Attachment

Is this some kind of weird dirt jumping nudist colony?

What’s weird about that combo?

Could be considerably more painful if you mess up the landing and buzz your bum! Or even worse your scrote!

It is ready to be picked up.

I am working from home on Wednesday so will take it to the recycling centre if it is still around

Exciting times. We also have a bungalow, but from the 70's. Ours was a big stretch too but we took the view that it was as sound an investment that you could have, therefore moving it on should always be possible if things got too tight. You should have the same security given where you are going. We both love bungalow living now, and while all types of places have their own pros and cons, on the balance of it I think they are great, we have no intention of changing anytime soon.

Hope it is a smooth sale.

Does yours need much work?

All of this talk of £50k+ extensions is making me wince, I'm having a really hard time justifying a AU$20k garage... #cheapbastard

I've just found out that our freeholder has gone in to administration, not only is there our building management etc but also an ongoing party wall issue related to a block of new flats they've been building next to ours.

This is going to be fun...

Perfect time to start your own management committee?

Perfect time to start your own management committee?

Yeah this. It's a critical time to do something. You don't want an opportunistic landlord hoovering your building up and making your life a misery.

I've just found out that our freeholder has gone in to administration, not only is there our building management etc but also an ongoing party wall issue related to a block of new flats they've been building next to ours.

This is going to be fun...

You have already got the best advice on this but please let me absolutely urge you to listen to Teenslain and Howard.

When a Freeholder goes into administration, two things happen: the residents claim the Freehold, which may require some expenditure, but the value of the flats increases significantly as they'll now be share of freehold; OR, one of the vast third party Freehold companies hoover up the Freehold at auction. And any Freeholder who buys your building at auction will not have your best interests at heart.

Our Freehold was bought by a company I will not mention here as they're notoriously litigious and I don't want our erstwhile leader getting into schtuck on this one. They bought the Freehold in 2010. Since then they've extracted around £60k from residents on top of a £2500 a year service charge. They've hounded me through the courts for owning a dog (perfectly allowed within our lease, but done as retribution for me questioning the high service charge) and they've literally affected the mental health of our co-residents to the point where many have sold their flats at a loss, withdrawn into depression, and in one case, died. More economically speaking, they depressed the value of the flats to the point where one of our two bedroom flats on the Lea Bridge Road, with garden space, sold for £127k in 2017.

Get yourself organised dude. This could either end up being a wonderful opportunity for freedom, or the start of a very dark chapter in your life.

Thanks for the heads up all, I've emailed my solicitor and am waiting on a call back from their specialist.

I'm in contact with the leaseholder downstairs and think he'd be on-board with taking control (our old freeholder/managing agent wasn't the worst but they were far from good value for money). I think the majority of the flats are still owned by the old freeholder so between me and my downstairs neighbour we don't have the 2/3rds for Right To Manage (as far as I understand it).

I'll obviously be talking to my solicitor in detail and try and read as much as I can in the meantime.

RTM requires 50% of the leaseholders to sign up, not the 2/3rds, I do'nt know if that helps. But I'm not sure if RTM applies to a Freeholder going under.

What I will say is that even if those flats are owned by the original Freeholder, they'll be well aware of the dangers here, so it's worth asking the person behind the Freehold to see if they're willing to join.

Good shout on the lawyer. This is a complex situation.