Owning your own home

probably just needs a touch of gold leaf.

Live, love, laugh written in sharpie along the bottom edge would do it.

JonoMarshall in reply to @Cazakstan

~£20 for a Chaps payment (3pm cut-off, same working day), or if you're a personal customer then break it into payments on separate days, or use a challenger bank to re-group the payments first if it has to go as one transaction. Revolut free personal account is good for this (insured up to £85k).

Brilliant, thanks for de-mystifying this for me, I really appreciate it.

Column/period correct radiators. Has anyone found any fairly good online suppliers?

Looking to install new rads in my house (Scotland). In a previous place I got fairly basic ones from Screwfix but we moved before I ever got to see if they were any good.

Victoria plumbing have fancy radiators but they are pricey and you might need two to heat a room if you size it right where as you could get a big double panel that will probs do the same for half the money. If you just want good radiators we use City plumbing delonghi are great quality and finished nicely.

And if you dont have a company to install feel free to give us a shout were in Glasgow.

There was some radiator chat recently (not sure if here or on @Velocio kitchen thread..) - think these guys were recommended https://www.traderadiators.com/

I bought 12 of the Stelrad column radiators for my new place. They look lovely but are in no way period correct. They're modern interpretations of old designs, and look it.

If you want ones that look like they would've originally, you're into serious money, prolly 3-4x the cost. They sell them here. You can also buy them refurb'd from reclaim places but then getting matching sets is tricky.

Also worth noting that very few Victorian houses had rads in. Only the fanciest places. Your bog standard Victorian terrace/semi would've been heated with a fire in every room.

Acova rads are decent and well priced.

Finally completed today on the house I have lived in for the last 23 years!

Congratulations! That's a long time to live in a house you don't own!

Everything outstanding now done. Just waiting for exchange which should hopefully be next week. Started the transfer over to the solicitors to keep the amounts under the daily limit.

Moved here when I was 11 with mum dad and brother and now its me my wife and 2 kids.

My brother was certain he'd be the last one to leave this house

Well, that's continuity for you. I suspect the chances of me buying my old family home (4 years old to 31, with a few breaks) are fairly slim. Not sure I can rustle up the £2m required, even if I dig around the back of the sofa and give the money tree a good shaking.

Your folks don't have to sell it at market value. Depends how much they love you...

Stamp duty does get paid at market value and there could be a big inheritance tax bill though.

Your folks don't have to sell it at market value. Depends how much they love you..

They sold it 11 years ago, a few years after I put myself out of the London housing market by moving to the Fens and buying a house with a double garage rather than a one bedroom flat somewhere in Zone Lots. IHT bill is still going to be a bitch though. I'd rather my father just spent it all, but he seems reluctant to do so. Still, taxation is the price of civilization so when the time comes we'll cough up.

They sold it 11 years ago

Meanies.

My parents are still in my childhood home that they have been in since 1973. Think they paid something like 12k for a 3-bed Victorian terrace in Crouch End backing onto a cricket pitch. Worth a bit more now so inheritance tax is likely to be an issue, which I'll be happy to pay.

The trouble with IHT is the truly wealthy don't pay it.

Meanies.

A little harsh, perhaps. My father still has the house in Hambleton at Rutland Water and the pied a terre in London.

The trouble with IHT is the truly wealthy don't pay it.

I know. That's why I made a conscious decision not to advise on 'estate planning' issues - i.e. tax avoidance. It's a very lucrative line of work, not surprisingly, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

a one bedroom flat somewhere in Zone Lots

Aren't you in a relatively well-paid line of work? When I hear things like this I wonder who's buying the regular property in London... There can't be that many international money launderers surely.

https://www.castironradiatorcentre.co.uk/

Have done two separate orders to these guys, plan to do more, would recommend

Ha my dad must not love me at all we have paid market value and then some

Aren't you in a relatively well-paid line of work?

On any objective analysis, ridiculously and absurdly so. The only basis on which I could possibly justify my hourly rate (which I'm not even supposed to know) is on the grounds that people are prepared to pay it. If I had bought a one bedroom flat in Zone Lots 20 years ago then no doubt I'd be climbing my way up the London property ladder with a crippling mortgage. But I didn't, and I'm not.

When I hear things like this I wonder who's buying the regular property in London...

You and me both. Mind you, Hampstead Garden Suburb may not constitute 'regular property'.

There can't be that many international money launderers surely.

I have this horrible feeling that there are. They're called 'bankers'.

They are lovely, pricey tho.

I have this horrible feeling that there are. They're called 'bankers'.

I’m (technically) a banker but I also live in Zone Lots... must be doing something wrong ;-)

On any objective analysis, ridiculously and absurdly so.

It's amazing what working a cab rank gets you nowadays.