Owning your own home

True. I am conflicted.

It's a massive expense that you're theoretically tied to for a long time. In my opinion, which is just that, it's more important to live somewhere nice in a mediocre house than live somewhere mediocre in a nice house: you can always improve the house, but you'll likely not have agency to improve the neighborhood.

What’s it on for?

You don’t need any of that to sell the property but probably the buyers will ask for it. If they do you and what you have isn’t sufficient then they can get someone to look at those things at their own expense.

725

Yep. Closed string is the term.

That's exactly how it goes, it's about 10% measuring, 50% cutting and 40% bashing

I agree with Cupcakes.

Out of curiosity, have you thought about buying a shit bungalow, knocking it down and building your own?

Freeholder bullshit update.

Writing directly to the freeholders (on Thursday) prompted an email from them to their solicitor (on Friday - copying me in, now giving me the email address of both freeholders) essentially saying WTAFIGO. So I reckon my assumption of her not having even spoken to them yet was right.

Now to see what this week does or does not bring.

man's MAN

@Señor_Bear I’m impressed with the craftsmanship, I wouldn’t have dared.

My bank balance is now very close to zero, so no choice hut to finish the place myself.

Thoughts welcome on this. Why is my mortgage broker steering me towards a two year mortgage, when from what I can tell the monthly repayments on a ten year loan are near identical?

Obviously he would get his fee if we used him to re-mortgage every two years, but given the current low rates, getting the longest term possible seems like a no brainer. What am I missing?

Flexibility? Assuming it's a fixed rate then there's likely to be early repayment charges.

Our buyers pulled out, no idea why, they haven't said.

Is there anything we can do now while their solicitor is still active to get anything from them to speed up the next buyer? Can you hold onto search results etc?

Depends if the next buyer uses the same solicitor, surely

Nightmare.

Ouch, that sucks :(

That's crap news but probably not surprising - there will be a lot of people finding out they don't have jobs any more today.

What am I missing?

Getting reamed if you want to move.

Check what the porting chargers are and what the early repayment charges are.

The search for a location continues:

Local cafe, pub, shop(s), by which I mean 5-15 minute walk from my door
Hour and a half from my door to Covent Garden, using nothing but walking and public transport
Access to the countryside, preferably in the same timescales as the cafe
45 minute cycle to Mitcham
Characterful house
Double garage and workshop
Under 800k, preferably

Also:
the moon
on a stick

That would be nice

I am struggling to find properties that match those criteria less the CG/Mitcham radius in quite a large pocket of the south west. Not helped by the fact that the definition of 'characterful' I hold seems to be quite different from that of the agents sending me 1980s shitboxes.

Can you hold onto search results etc?

You can ask to buy them from them.

You might be able to buy the searches. Or at least get the solicitor details so you can pass them on to the next buyer so they can buy the searches from them (I'd imagine buyers may be suspicious of vendor provided searches, I probably would be).

If it's any comfort the same happened to me. I eventually sold it for £5k more than the previous offer (viewing and offer on the first day after lockdown ended) and the delay meant that I ended up being able to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday.