Owning your own home

Most effective is an inline unit.

To have a bathroom extractor venting into a loft space is mad. There are lots of options for venting out of a loft space what is suitable depends on the construction of your roof. A good sparky or bathroom fitter should be able to advise you best as to what is suitable.

We had good service and it was good value from http://www.mrworktops.com camberwell sort of area.

Massive trawl, but how did this pan out? I need to get access to the other side of my bedroom wall. Don't need to go through the neighbour's house or anything to do it, but there's a shed, and the wall is covered in ivy and crap, which I'm fairly sure it contributing to my damp problems. Conveniently the neighbours are new, redoing their driveway/garden situation and may not want the shitty old shed anyway.

Additional trip hazard - am leasehold, freehold is another neighbour. Benevolent but lazy.

Looking to get a fitted wardrobe installed in the bedroom. Any forum trusted joiners or carpenters in SE? Ideally looking for something reasonably priced :)

I've still not found a renderer I want to go with yet (wrong time of year anyway) but I did speak to a property surveyor who seemed pretty clued up. Hopefully I won't need to invoke the act, but I will probably be getting a survey and contract drawn up to the tune of £600 to cover my back against shitty neighbor. I'm not sure how it works in your case, but it sounds like the wall will be yours (confirming this is key) and they're growing ivy on it, which they have no right to do. They're probably liable for removing it in that case, but it sounds like you're happy to do that. Not sure what you can do about the shed though, have you spoken to them about it? Have a polite chat with them about it, 2/3 of my neighbors were really cooperative and lovely.

I've not done any work for anyone "on here" but do have a lot of experience making and fitting wardrobes and would be happy to talk things through with you and give you a quote. I would need to know how far SE you are.

If you find him please let me know.

Great, I will PM

Thanks - I assume the wall can only be ours since the building is detached, but there are lots of weird things going on with the deeds. Hopefully they'll just happily bin the shed and I can get one of those driveway weedkilling flamethrower things and set to the wall!

Our buyers surveyor has found evidence of damp in the living room and a spongy floorboard. Anyone got any reccos for independent damp assessors/surveyors so I can have it looked into? Don't want to get a free quote from a company because of course they'll want the work.

Isn't it the buyers job to pay for a damp report? All part of the survey and all that.

TBH I dunno, I just got an email from our solicitor saying that that's what the survey found and would I look into it...

Just bought a 30's house, the survey showed up some damp so we had to get a damp and timber survey on top.

I guess if we had paid for a full survey it would come with a damp report. Turned up 4 grands worth of damp work but as the vendors accepted an offer well under the asking price we went ahead anyway. Mortgage people not too bothered at only 4 grands worth of work either.

Interesting, thanks. Hmmm, I want to placate them but don't want to mug myself, haven't got a spare penny anyway to be honest. Will investigate further.

I imagine that it's a bit harder to convince a prospective buyer, but I've come round to the 'no such thing as rising damp' viewpoint. Our 1930s survey flagged damp in one wall in the kitchen. There was a collapsed gutter directing loads of water to the base of that wall, so we fixed that. Just had it replastered in the recent wet weather and it dried right away.

I think we did get a damp survey done which suggested work, but it was a free evaluation so take with a pinch of salt.

There is certainly such a thing as rising damp, it is however much less common than many cowboys would have you believe.

Where is the house?

Walthamstow. I know they want it so could play hardball but don't want to seem unreasonable. The report was vague but said it wasn't extensive but should be looked into. Could be an oversensitive surveyor?

We've bought a place STC and are desperate to move in. We would probably waive any minor flags. So I should probably assume it's the same with our buyers. Don't want to be too soft if they're trying it on.

Oh by the way another hearty recommendation for Mike Brown at https://www.crystalclearfs.com, went miles above and beyond and a nice guy and cyclist to boot!

The rule of thumb is that because no vendor will give a surveyor permission to conduct an invasive survey they put any potential problem, no matter how small down as something along the lines of "requires further investigation". They do this to cover themselves from a legal standpoint.

If I were you I'd want to Quantify how much remedial works will cost. As you have already said it is not in your interest to get a free quote firm to quote for this. I know someone who is good at this type of thing (he's a registered surveyor in remedial works) but he's busy and normally only works in and around Ealing. If you want I can ask but the answer will likely be no.

I always thought the onus was on the purchaser to arrange and pay for surveys? I guess so that the lender will stump up the mortgage for the purchaser.

Veering towards letting them deal with it. If they want to pull out we can re-market on Saturday and have it sold on Monday.

I would tell them as much, although it would help to establish whether they are nervous FTBs that genuinely think there is a problem, or more seasoned buyers trying it on.

My instinct is that they're nervous first time buyers with a seasoned solicitor who knows what to ask for (everything)