Owning your own home

New to market on Thursday, I'm confident of that. I honestly think it's worth 325 ish, and there was 7 people interested at the time we spoke.

This is in Brighton where the market's been particularly crazy the past 18 months. Inflated by Londoners making the short move down I'm told.

The last place I offered on, I was 3% over asking and lost out in under a week of it appearing.

I have to thank the previous owner for their negligence though otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford our place.

This is the exact position I'm in as well. It's absurd to be grateful to a group of people who ran down the value of a property over a period of many years, but I am. I'd still be renting without them.

Fixing all the problems though...gad do not underestimate the pain

Ha absolutely, I've learned my lesson - the new place I'm moving into needs decorating, no more. But when I moved into this place it needed the electrics doing, a new boiler, mould removal, lease extension, and a RTM put in place. I'm glad we did it but christ it's going to be nice to just live in a flat again, rather than manage it.

Chippy, but you also want to know why it's moving. Rotted out where built into wall etc? Does this need looking at too? Damp and ventilation etc.

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6/7 week wait for a survey on the flat I'm hopefully buying ends next week. Excited and nervous.
Had an electrician go round today to check the electrics and do a mini survey (friend of a friend).

All looked fine he said but no RCD protected fuse box and the smoke alarms are all shot. Is that something you'd seek to get a quote for and knock off the price? Whether anything gets raised price wise will be a function of the main survey

Fixing all the problems though...gad do not underestimate the pain.

I’m getting that, at the same time it will keep the flat value high in the long run with the main problem sorted.

But also a lots of the issues can wait which is helpful.

I'd never live in a house without an RCD, so that needs fixing ASAP and indicates the fuse box is a bit on the elderly side. Definitely budget for it even if you can't get the price reduced.

Are they battery smoke alarms or an interconnected system?

Personally I'd say that's kind of thing that should have been factored into your offer (unless there was something explicit to make you think otherwise or the fuse box was locked away or something). Trying to chip away at that kind of thing would just piss me off if I was selling.

My house has got two CUs. One with an RCD and one without (fuse wire FTW). Would you be able to live in that?

(I'll get the old CU changed one day but I want to get the probably asbestos panels in the ceiling of the garage where it is replaced first and that requires emptying the garage which means finding homes for all the things in the garage which at least in part means sorting out the shed which means deciding if we want a shed or a garden room etc... - meanwhile the new CU with the RCD protects the more risky areas (kitchen) so I'll live with it).

Answering @bobble, you aren't buying a new build with everything up to current spec and guaranteed. Old wiring in old houses is to be expected.

Turns out the hold-up for my purchase (contract pack requested by my solicitors 11-and-a-bit weeks ago) was due to the vendor and their solicitor missing some documents needed to put the pack together.

Kind of curious what those documents were - I assume previously missing - guess we'll have to wait and see...

3 months late but nice one dude! We sold a Warner via Stow and they really helped us rinse every last penny from our buyers. Would use again.

My house has got two CUs. One with an RCD and one without (fuse wire FTW). Would you be able to live in that?

Depends which circuit I get zapped by.

Seriously, RCDs change touching a live wire from being a reasonable-chance-of-death event to being a reasonable-chance-of-having-to-reset-the-clock-on-the-coffee-machine event. It's like if cycle h*****s actually did what their mouthiest proponents said they do.

they really helped us rinse every last penny from our buyers

Ermm...

Sorry I mean maximise our return.

Weird thing for an agent to say in that case… good luck w/ the offer

no RCD protected fuse box and the smoke alarms are all shot. Is that something you'd seek to get a quote for and knock off the price

Generally as a seller I would not be inclined to reduce the price for something that is (or should be) evident to a clued-up buyer on a viewing. Trying to get a look at the consumer unit should be part of the standard viewing checklist.

Cheers for the RCD input all :). Will reply in one comment. Unit was last tested in 2018 which isn't too bad I don't think.

@grams battery. electrician who popped round today recommended mains and battery ones incase 1 fails or you get a fire when there is a power cut. Have budgeted for it. £250-300 ish plus smoke alarms my electrician said.

@aggi yeah fair play. Was only going to mention it if the survey came back with points to raise. I didn't see it when I was there though I did have a look.

@jellybaby 100+ year old flat and that was the only notable things my electrician said. Definitely no rewire was music to my ears.

@NickCJ yeah fair. In my viewing process I took a photo of it and as much as I could to someone who knew what they were looking at. I don't think it was evident where it was (to a novice anyway).

Cheers again :)

Pics in from the electrician.
That's why I didn't get to the CU and here's the smoke alarms ...

3 Attachments

recommended mains and battery ones incase 1 fails or you get a fire when there is a power cut. Have budgeted for it. £250-300 ish plus smoke alarms my electrician said.

Get two battery ones - they are about £25.

For minimum disruption Re-use the same spots in the ceiling as the old ones, assuming their positioning wasn’t silly.

Mains powered seems a bit ott and would mean messing up decoration somewhere and then it will end up in the easiest position to cable rather than the best position for catching potential fires.

Wouldn’t you have to somehow retrieve the old live cabling if you did that? I don’t love the sound of just chopping it and whacking a load of tape around it.

At least you’ll be able to put the CU in a better position when you rewire ;-)

From the existing ones? They look like battery operated.

Even the alarm connected ones we had turned out to be battery operated. Not sure what the use case for power line operated smoke detectors are in a residential setting TBH; probably useful in an office where cabling them is super easy and you want them to talk to each other.

Ah yes, misread the post you were replying to!