Owning your own home

Experian "New customers only. £14.99 a month after your 30-day trial*"
and they make it painful to cancel, IIRC

Equifax: "$9.95 per month. Cancel at any time, no partial month refunds.2"

I use clear score and credit karma, both free and use Equifax I think.

Do you have a temporary card with your bank? I think Revolute used to offer them

Creditkarma uses transunion, it’s fine.
If it gets down to lenders actually needing a copy though you’ll have to get one directly from Experian or a Equifax normally.

Had exactly the same, from a neighbour on the side I wasn’t extending on.
They are totally within their rights to do this and nothing you can do about it sadly.
Being within your rights doesn’t exclude you from being a moron though.

We might actually have progress on selling without an EWS1.

My flat is under 18M, standard construction, no cladding, block and render with no fire breaks, no wood on balcony's etc etc etc.

One Surveyor in March requested one, I got my buyer to wait until the RICS guidance change on 5th April and try a different lender.

Second Surveyor came round recently, I decided to just ask outright, after a discussion and some investigation he went away saying we likely don't need one, but he would need to check the current regs.

I heard yesterday valuation has come back fine, so he definitely hasn't asked for one, we are just waiting on them getting their formal mortgage offer to see if it is asked for within that, the lender is one that has definitely changed their criteria based on the RICS update.

I literally have everything crossed at this point.

My next door neighbour did this too. She used a right jobsworth of a surveyor who charged me a £1,000 up front then another £600 after for taking photos of a hairline crack in the wall and writing a report. Then my next door neighbour used the surveyors friend to do the repair works at another £300.

What could have been a really nice I'll sort out anything that goes wrong type of deal, turned into nearly £2k for me and I basically loathe her now.

Same boat as me. My neighbours solicitor tried to claim we cut a chunk out of her patio despite the fact we went nowhere near it and wanted another £120 on top of the 2k to fix it.
I phoned him directly and asked what where the motivations behind this blatantly false claim and he had a bit of a melt.
Small victories. Neighbours still cost me 3k for nothing.

You get credit reports for free from all three UK agencies (it used to be £2 under the DPA, but is free under GDPR).

This shows all the data that has been collected from your financial history, and is the basis of any credit decisions (and address validation, among other checks).

Anything else is something different - a score, for example. These offer interpretation of the data available, and are entirely proprietary to the agency, and may not reflect what a bank, for example, might consider as a reflection of a) your credit worthiness, or b) your value as a fee paying customer.

How are they within their rights if any work does not affect the party wall?

Anything that involves the party wall needs a party wall agreement whether it actually effects it or not. For example I needed agreements from both my neighbours for our side return (no extension). Our neighbour who it did effect (side return side) didn’t care and signed without fuss while our other neighbour lied about her intentions and filed an objection.

What could have been a really nice I'll sort out anything that goes wrong type of deal, turned into nearly £2k for me and I basically loathe her now.

Does show a lack of judgement. Easy way to find out quickly if your neighbours are fucking shortsighted idiots though. Didn’t they steal your surveyor as well?

@hippy

MSE is a good place to get the info: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/check-free-credit-report/

And there's a whole thread on the forum about how to use GDPR to get the info they hold on you: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5844570/credit-file-and-gdpr

Just to be pedantic - Those services in the first link are optional. You can use them, but you don't have to use them.

You can access your (what used to be called the statutory) credit report without using them. The 3 agencies all allow it online now, with only one or two hoops.

How’s best to get an idea of the cost of renovating a house before putting an offer in?

Find a friendly builder and do a second viewing?
Expect the worse and total up average costs of re-wiring, plastering, plumbing etc. etc?
Offer somewhere in a rough range and re-negotiate after the survey?

Had our first four viewings today and naturally the one we liked most needed to most work (and quite a lot of it!)

There’s cost to do the work required to make it habitable, like new roof, and there’s cost to make it as you want it. Only one really makes a difference to what you offer.

it really depends on what you do and the specs of the renovation.
If you know and can send a builder, do it.
If you really have no idea, count between 500£(v cheap) and 1k (nicely done) per sqm

generally a place that needs a lot of work will be a better deal than paying for something that has been done up to sell.

for sure - at the moment the place we saw is considerably overpriced with this in mind from my perspective, aided by the fact other similar properties done up sell within days or even before they’re on rightmove (another viewing this morning was an open house with 15 other punters all lined up)

between 500£(v cheap) and 1k (nicely done) per sqm

this is good to know, thanks - we’re defo on the cheap side (also we’re up north) - house is probably 100sqm, imagine the roof might well need re-doing (loft hatch was screwed in place so couldn’t check anything internal).

@Señor_Bear - good point, definitely already looked at leaving the kitchen and bathroom as is for now as even if they’re tired and ugly, they’re functional.

In case folks are interested - it’s this:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property/85821220 (lots of old damp stains/mouldy bits hidden behind sofas in the photos - looks like it’s been a HMO for years and not looked after at all)

Oh, you're with British Gas too I see.

(Don't worry, I'm mid switch to Octopus).

I’m confused. So for an infill on one side you still need a party wall agreement with the neighbour on the other side? How does that make sense..?

its a very rough estimate, but if you have a new boiler to install, update plumbing with adequate pipes & radiators, install a new kitchen with appliances, new bathroom, new flooring (carpet or wood), plaster work, half of the windows, moving one or 2 partition walls, etc. you must not underestimate the budget.

Groundwork within 3m of a boundary maybe?

I'm not sure i get it either - if you're not affecting the party wall / digging within certain parameters, you don't need to notify, and don't need an agreement / award.