Owning your own home

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  • I'm investigating a repair

  • Thanks for the offer but need integrated and a specific fit.

  • It looks like I'm going to be moving from Leeds to London in the next few months. I own my house in Leeds and want to rent it out rather than sell it. Does anyone else here have a similar situation? Tips for insurance, dealings with letting agents, how to avoid being a bastard landlord and anything else much appreciated!

  • If you have a mortgage, make sure you get consent to let. Taking the risk / winging it is not worthwhile.

  • dealings with letting agents, how to avoid being a bastard landlord

    These two are related; don't deal with the first and you won't be the second. But even if you do everything by the book nobody will give you a medal.

    The renting thread is a good resource. Search for 'bats'.

  • Factor in your the income tax you'll have to pay at the end of the year. Do everything by the book, like EPC, tennancy contracts, electrical certificate etc. If you don't and things go tits up and you have to evict your tenants it'll make it very difficult. Use openrent and find a good property maintenance guy you can trust for all the little things that might go wrong.

  • our bathroom and toilet are next to each other but separate rooms. for REASONS we need to redo the bathroom, so this would be the time to knock through. i've heard arguments for and against keeping bog and bathroom separate. anyone have any experience of knocking thru or not and any advice to share?

  • We're gonna do this to ours at some stage as we've only got a shower... Looking forward to it, hoping my mate still works at the posh bathroom place when we do... Cost price posh bathroom stuff!!

  • We knocked through ours a few years ago. It's much better, the bathroom feels much more spacious as a result.

  • didn't mrak have one for sales??? I have no idea how to @ him as he doesn't have any letters in his username.

    It's a shame that @Mrak doesn't work. It definitely should work. I think we should ask David to write special software. :)

  • We did it in our previous flat and it made a huge difference - much more spacious.
    Deffo helped us sell the place too.

  • Any party wall surveyor recommendations, SE London? Builder next door has been taking the piss too much. Neighbour the other side of the property and I need to tighten some screws.

  • Looks like knock through has won the vote. I'll be sending you all the bill for the extra work.

  • Re insurance we used Simply Business. They were good especially as we had to open a claim .

    The only thing that's BS which is worth knowing, is that the emergency repair (where the insurance send a repair for up to ~£500) doesn't cover "trace and access". T&A means finding what the issue is, which sounds reasonable, BUT in relation to water stuff that includes anything not visible. Give that almost every bathroom has concealed pipes all they will do is shut off the water.

    Re agents, ours was a traditional old school agent who sold the house originally. They were a bit slack on somethings. However, they had great repair guys, etc. who were good and cheap. On balance I think they did a better job that the brand names. As well as being cheaper.

    Worth pointing out we were in the US so couldn't have popped back.

  • How many toilets do you have? If only one I'd keep them separate.

  • Thanks everyone for the good advice. These are literally all things I hadn't thought about. I'm in two minds about using a letting agency, will have to look into the pros and cons.

  • Also, if anyone wants to rent a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with a garden in a very quiet area, a 45 minute walk from Leeds city centre for less than a studio anywhere in London, hmu.

  • This is about the best advice.
    With kids. It's nice to be able to hide somewhere.

  • we have a downstairs shutter also

  • ^ shitter

  • Drop me a line...

  • Bumped the PM chain.

  • We've finally got the end in sight for the downstairs part of our project.

    Our house had quite a strange layout originally, being an end-of-terrace with the front door in the side (so it looks like a manor house from the "front" and then is quite shallow).

    This was then exacerbated by the fact that at some point a kitchen extension had been added, and access to this had been made by carving a corridor out of a reception room, so you had to go down a narrow passageway to get to the kitchen.

    We had the wall between the reception room and the kitchen, and a chimney breast on the wall, removed, and a new kitchen fitted.

    All that's left to do now is the floor in our new dining room, replastering and decorating. Which sounds like a lot now I've said it like that. But at least we've now got a usable kitchen.


    2 Attachments

    • Woodhouse Floor Plan now.jpg
    • Woodhouse Floor Plan original.jpg
  • Zoopla won't give an estimate for our flat, but does provide a value in the remortgage box, which I'm assuming is based on a valuation estimate, which therefore makes the lack of a value estimate seem odd.

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Owning your own home

Posted by Avatar for Hobo @Hobo

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