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You know you can get 5% mortgages now? Could be an option to increase budget if you wanted to?
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You’re welcome to pop round for a cuppa and chat about all things Warner/bikes if you like. I get a bit grumpy sometimes due to the upstairs flat having solid wood floors, but they’re not that bad I guess overall. I just think they’re overpriced for what they are, and people like Stow Brothers make a mint bigging them up to entice the Hackney folk relocating.
Thanks dude, that's really kind of you. My wife's sister just moved to the top of Kettlebaston Rd just over from you guys so I should have a bit more first hand experience of them over the next few weeks. I do think they're cute and I like the history, but I think for me when even places like these are going for £300k, an extra £50k to get a little house vibe feels worthwhile.
Unfortunately our budget is our budget @chrisbmx116 - we've got a decent batch of equity built up in our current place but we've also got a limited amount of time to pay the mortgage back, I'm getting old!
@Vesalius I should've said that I want to stay around here. My parents are in Zone 4 east and my work is in SE1, and I really want to keep cycling to work (whenever we end up back in teh office!). I really like the E10 bit of Lea Bridge Road.
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One for @Sheppz potentially, or @Brommers? (sorry to @)
My partner's doing an extension at the moment.
She appointed a party wall surveyor. Both neighbours were initially happy to use them, but later then one decided they weren't happy with where the boundary was, so used their own.
As it transpired, they were wrong (they'd previously put a fence fully inside my partner's garden).All carried on, extension mostly built now.
Partner's just got a bill through for ~2.5k which she wasn't expecting. (This in addition to the 1.2 she paid for her own/other neighbour combined)The extension was pretty straightforward. 3m build into the garden. Nothing touching any neighbours walls or anything structural, but obviously some making good on their garden plants/garden wall.
Given the bill has popped up so late she's not best pleased at either the timing or the price. Anything that can be done? Request a breakdown of the hours spent on it? Anything else...
(Both surveyors have ‘off the record’ mentioned that the neighbours were particularly awkward given how trivial the work was and that they were in the wrong)
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Lawyer has written up a long list of reservations he'll pass on to the EA. He's pretty sure they won't be able to sort out the problems, so told me to either get ready to restart the price negotiations or just walk away.
Apparently it's not only an illegal (or at unregistered) loft conversion, which obviously wasn't registered as he didn't want to pay tax on it. It's also at least one unregistered oil tank, 25 years of not paying the council for the sewage connection, not registering as a two family residence (which it is illegally converted to), some sort of cluster fuck about the owner of this property being legally obliged to provide water for the neighbour and then a shed and a conservatory without building permit. -
Yep - party wall award.
Fees were approx 1900 for the fees for the award and to liaise with the neighbour's appointed surveyor. Then the other surveyor's fees on top.
It's the 2500 that seems very high for what it was (~600 higher than the combined price for own/other neighbour), and also that there was no indication it'd be that high until just now - 2.5 months later.
Sounds like the price is high because the neighbours didn't trust the award and wanted a second visit from the surveyors. They were actually requesting that a surveyor would be onsite to witness the builders building to the line.
'fussy' doesn't begin to cover it
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The building owner will not be required to pay the adjoining owner’s surveyor’s costs when these have resulted from unreasonable conduct either on the part of the adjoining owner or the surveyor. The adjoining owner must act reasonably.’
On this second proviso the Judge made specific reference to the case of Manu v Euroview Estates Ltd [2008] 1 EGLR 165, 176G, as detailing examples of the type of conduct that might persuade a court, namely:
‘taking pedantic and difficult points, making repeated requests for unnecessary information, insisting on obtaining unnecessary or unnecessarily extensive reports from structural engineers, and in conduct apparently designed to hinder or delay the making of an award.’
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wait, but, if their costs are in the award, and they are asking for more, they can do one?
There's probably someone who knows more than I do, but it seems like the process here got fucked up and your neighbour acted unilaterally and are now expecting you to pay? or the award didn't detail the fees that would be paid to the other surveyor? That's not right, the award should detail / cover the costs.
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wait, but, if their costs are in the award, and they are asking for more, they can do one?
I think this is where our thinking is going atm.
We paid for the award. They then wanted more reassuring that our builders would actually follow the award (they're a reputable main contractor so there's no reason to assume they wouldn't).
Along with the link @Kurai posted then I'm hoping we can break down the costs as
1) costs to get to the party wall award
2) costs due to neighbour being awkwardand part 2 gets redirected to the neighbours.
I'm gonna read through the award fully (only scanned it before as it's not my house/extension/neighbours/money). May well be that they're just an expensive surveyor.
Ta both
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Unless anything massively untoward can be proven then it is for you to pay unfortunately @duncs
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Just a quick look on Zoopla
chrisbmx116
Vesalius
6pt
ReekBlefs
Lolo
duncs
JesperXT
Howard
Kurai
EstelleGetty
stevo_com
Brommers
Simpson
hippy-
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About
Owning your own home
Posted by
@Hobo
Not super bothered by Warner - I do like character, but the key bit is to have a bit more privacy than I do at the moment.
At the moment I'm in a block of 48 flats and as I'm the guy who put the residents group together, and initiated our RTM claim, I'm on the hook every time there's a problem, and I'm exhausted by it. I want to live somewhere there's no aggressive freeholder hanging over my shoulder, a place I'd be happy to grow a bit older in, somewhere a little more private than where I'm at at the moment (I'm ground floor facing a residents car park), somewhere I'd be happy to rent out should the shit hit the fan, somewhere near the Aldi with two beds and some outdoor space for around £350k.
I do like character in a property, but that's a secondary importance - privacy and space is more important. If you've any ideas I'd love to hear them.
@chrisbmx116 couldn't agree more - east Walthamstow has been seen as a bit of a poor cousin of Walthamstow Proper for a long time but it's really picked up over the last few years. I want to stay this side for sure.