Owning your own home

QQ re completing pre stamp duty deadline - if we were to exchange next week with a completion date of 19th March and the completion delayed post the 31st who is liable for what? If it is due to buyer delay then I presume they are liable for additional cost, if it is due to seller are they liable for the additional SDLT costs incurred by buyer? How will it work for a chain? Thanks all

So you can call for one radiator to come on via the app and the boiler will fire up?

Nightmare scenario where the person who stuffs it all up is made bankrupt by being sued for everyone elses extra SDLT bill.

Need to get it written into the contract if you can. Though I'm not sure how binding it would really be in any case. No-one is liable otherwise - it just shit luck.

Thanks. If it were a main room, then I'd have got Everest to add it to the quote. But it is only going to be a box room/spare room (when I can get time to finish the clean and decorate) so the windows just need to not look gross and be able to shut. The one on the right has a gap at the hinge as I think the mechanism is worn out. But if I can push it to from the outside by leaning out the left one, I'll just lock the handles closed and be done with it.

It's interesting as the gap meant that's how most of the smoke left the room so it was the mankiest spot. It seems nicotine/tar stains are worst in the points where either there was no air movement (so it hung around like the literal bad smell) or where the air left the room (door/window gaps - where it gets concentrated/funneled).

Yes. Each radiator and the wall thermostat are their own "zone". So if one shows a temp lower than they are set, the boiler will fire. If the other rads show as being up to temp, they will close. I have three non TRV rads; hallway, kitchen and bathroom, so if anything calls for heat, they heat up too. But the hallway one is useful as it keeps the core of the house warm/dry and the other two are tiny rads. It's nice to have a toasty/dry bathroom and the kitchen one is in the laundry area so again handy to deal with any humidity caused by the washing machine/drier.

London rental opportunity of the week

ERCs

Lender might let you 'port' though. Depends on the figures involved and whether they would lend on the new property.

These mortgages are portable. The only* fee would be an arrangement fee (£1k) for an additional mortgage to cover any difference.

In case it's useful let's take an e.g.

Current House = 400k
Mortgage = 300k
New House = 500k

That means we'd need an extra 100k to buy New House.

Potential issues I see:

1. Affordability criteria - we're no longer suitable to repay 400k (300+100) so they, nor anyone else will lend us the 100k. But if we're moving in year 3 or 4 we should know this and then wouldn't bother moving.
   
2. Valuation - New House ≠ 500k and they won't port or lend the extra 100k. That is something we may not know until we're quite far down the road, and would prevent us from selling Current House before looking for New House... or thinking it through more, could they use this as an excuse to prevent us porting it? i.e. saying that New House is actually worth <300k
   
   

*we think - hence me asking in case people have experienced any surprise fees.

We had a few of those "hot spots".

The bathroom extractor fan was fucking raw. But I still think cleaning the freezer twice was the most shocking. It's a fucking freezer! How do you make a freezer smell of smoke?

You'd need something explicit in the sale contract if you wanted it to be anything other than the person who would normally pay the stamp duty has to suck it up.

If there are a few people in the chain I can't imagine people would be keen on that clause (plus you'd need loads of matching clauses throughout the chain which I imagine would be a nightmare to get through).

My guess is that things like pvc windows or enamelled type surface like radiators or freezers cause some sort of static attraction so the particulates cling to them more than say the emulsion wall paint (although that's fucking gross here too, just not as bad.

I did have one but it ended up cheaper just to pay it off and get a new mortgage for the full amount. From talking to the broker this seems to happy more than people actually end up porting them.

When you take out the top-up mortgage I believe you're generally restricted to the same provider if you want to get the best rates.

Thanks all - sounds like it’s going to be a fun ride!

Cork

Cork

We've just moved almost three years into a 5 year fix in a similar scenario to the one you outline. We've now got an additional 2 year fixed for the extra amount from the same lender, which is at a better rate than the 5. Plan is to go onto the variable rate for the ~3 months between the 5 and 2 year terms ending, and then consolidate them both.

If we'd moved a few months later I think it would have made more sense to pay the ERC and get a better rate, but we moved when we did so ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Only other thing is they'd only give us the two year fix for a 35 year term, so the 5 year is now also on that rather than the 31 years it had left, but I don't really mind that. I don't think the lender charged any fees, but our mortgage advisor who dealt with it all charged a bit for the admin.

Someone is losing their deposit for sure.

I remembered to do this when I left the UK. Yay!

every time I have a bath I dump the water down the side of the house

I read this in a slightly different order to how you wrote it...

Is there anything in particular which means you think the completion will be delayed?

And if you can exchange next week why wait so long to complete?

Me too!

No reason - first time buyer wanting to make sure I understand everything as cannot afford to miss deadline. At the bottom of a chain of 4 so I was told dates rather than negotiated them. The top of the chain are moving to Berlin so need time to pack and arrange international transport etc.

And if you can exchange next week why wait so long to complete

Presumably the earliest all properties in the chain can complete.

But I guess yeah why exchange now.

Just took the protective film off the units

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So clean and blemish free.

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