Owning your own home

The double glazing business is a pressure sales market with massively inflated prices IMO. Double glazed windows look like some sort of wizardry, but the hardest bit is the frame, that is squared in the brick opening using packers then screwed into the brick using masonry screws. There are Youtube guides that show how quick and simple it is.

I once paid £6k for 13 windows when I didn't know better. Took the guy less than a day (house was not yet plastered so he didn't need to do any finishing).

For me, it was having the balls to smash out an entire bay of old windows and know the house won't collapse. We had two of these fuckers done.

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That's the route I'm going down atm, £240 for local building control to advise, inspect & sign the job off(but this will involve the removal of a few courses of bricks to fit French doors too).

What did you replace them with?

I'm rather interested in what goes on between the mullions and the frame.

Everest uPVC double glazed sashes.

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Can anyone recommend a SW London based surveyor to do a full strucutral for a house purchase pls?

Our house sold in March.... finally completed today. Moving next Thursday.

Bring on the garage bike room!

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A 2nd lounge with bikes basically

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Pebbledash should be a crime

Quite a lot of the houses round here (early C20th) were originally roughcast or pebbledashed. People get it removed due to taste or mistakenly thinking they're 'restoring' the building only to find the bricks were never intended to be on show, and it shows.

Anyone want to play a game?

Count how many crucifixes or religious icons are visible in this house

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113290595

in process of selling our flat just now

we have pictures hung around the house that we'll take with us

what is the normal procedure for the small holes/fixtures - do these need fixed before we leave?

amen

do these need fixed before we leave?

Only if you agree to do it which requires the buyers to ask you to do it

Not though of that, there’s a street full of 1950’s type housing that entirely done in pebbledash for the reason bricks aren’t meant to be shown.

Buying a small 2 bed flat in a listed building. It's 170 years old and has 9 flats in it.

Is the general view that a homebuyers survey is sufficient? I'm not sure how a structural survey would work on a flat in a building anyway.

My lender, Nationwide offer a Homebuyers survey for £375 (£310k property). I can't find much info on what to look for in a survey. I assume a chartered surveyor is all that's needed so price is the only real factor?

It's unlikely. Unless you're trying to sell the place as pristine then a few holes and the like are to be expected, the buyers are probably going to redecorate anyway.

You are right in that full fat surveys of flats are of questionable value. You must build up a picture of the condition of the building in other ways - careful inspection of the recent and planned works, cyclical maintenance, existing residents' bug-bears and complaints, levels of expenditure etc etc.

Depends what your repair obligations are. Home Buyers Surveys are generally very poor value (I've reviewed lots of them).

Yes. Assuming leasehold in England all repair costs will normally be passed on to leaseholders (check the lease), so knowing if the building needs major work is important.

Which doesn't mean paying extra for a fancy survey will tell you anything.

Home Buyers Surveys are generally very poor value

Poor values in terms of what? Missing things or being less worthwhile in principle?

From what I gather older listed properties can throw up a few spanners so I'm happy to spend more for a bit of peace of mind, but it seems to me that a bog standard Homebuyers Survey is the only suitable option

this is what @Howard has decribed.
Home buyers are a rip-off, basically an extra fee that says the flat is buyable. A full survey will begiving you a few more truths but not much more than what common sense would.

I think in the case of a leasehold flat there isn't really a survey option at all that provides a whole lot of value. Personally I think the whole residential surveying process is broken but that's another matter.

From what I gather older listed properties can throw up a few spanners

You'd be better off learning what those are up front, then asking the surveyor to look out for evidence of them or, better, spotting them yourselves. Think of your surveyor as a well meaning but dysfunctional robot who needs careful direction to be useful.

tl;dr You need to be Poirot, and the surveyor is your Hastings.

What can you do when you have a builder who is halfway through a project and now not responding to messages?...Have paid half upfront the total to cover materials.
@stevo_com any tips?

Turn up at their house

Don't move out, you'll only regret it, people are weird and boring outside of London.
Or really move out, and get somewhere on the Norfolk coast, gentrify it enough for when I move (prob never due to point 1).