Owning your own home

outrageous pro-london sentiment in this thread. what sort of outfit is user velocio running round here

Thanks @Howard and @Currid - first time selling and buying at the same time, it feels like a minefield

Clue is in the name isn't it? Although I am looking at moving out, so...

Not much other than be a pain in the dick until they finish. Then never use them again. I'm still waiting on my EICR cert and some trunking to be replaced after the electrician did his work a month or so ago.

Also, this is happening today. It was only plastered a couple of months ago. But the builder's plaster was shit and it all blew. They then got two great plasterers who fixed a similar issue in my office (took it back to brick and did it properly) FOC. Shit Builder Co annoyed those good plasterers so much, they left. We're now paying the good plasterers directly to fix it. Annoying, but I want it done well by good people. These guys seem like good people, so far, but I've said that before.

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there is no way of telling if you'll need to replace 50 or 200 bricks on top of the quote for pebbledash removal and cleaning.

This isn't completely true. @hoefla is right of course in that you should never be trying to take pebbledash off a house that is meant to have it, but the way to tell is what your neighbours have had done to their places.

In our area this is lots of removal of pebbledash or render to reveal the lovely bricks beneath. I haven't seen any evidence of bricks needing to be replaced or heard any horror stories from the multiple people on our road (and nearby roads) who've had it done.

Elsewhere you can definitely have pebbledash removed and end up with lots of knackered bricks because the facings have come away, but some research should tell you the most likely outcome based on the experience of your neighbours.

the L stands for "london-is-bad-and-hated"

no!!

Has anyone else struggled just to get the simplest fucking thing done with their home or is it just me?

Since I bought a house, I have been charged above the odds, wasted time getting quotes from people who then disappeared, never known how much things are supposed to cost. I was fully willing to pay someone to get stuff done but DIYed so much just because dealing with trades is so fucking stressful.

Does anyone else wish there was an app like Uber where you just put in your simple fucking job (e.g. add a socket, here are the photos), given a typical price which gets locked in, tradesperson agrees to do it, and you directly pay the app company who deal with the tradesperson. I mean taxis used to feel like signing a deal with the devil before Uber...

There are occasional great tradespeople who I have stuck with e.g. my roofer who is honest and fantastic if I ever have a storm that takes off a tile. But I am sure there are frustrated tradespeople who lose out on a lot of work because people like me decide it is less faff just to do it myself after the stress of trying to get someone who isn't going to try to rip me off/play me for a fool.

Mybuilder.com is the closest. But a lot of trades are a bit useless... and the ones that are not are too busy to mess about with small jobs.

I am thinking if I were a tradesperson with no track record yet, I'd love a platform where I could just pick off some small jobs if I were just starting out, to build a reputation. Getting work done on your house hasn't been revolutionised by the internet yet - sites like MyBuilder are still just quotation/review sites. To be able to select a specific job from a dropdown and get an instant price based on the going rate, then lock it in, would be amazing.

Need to do more of this.

@neu I just paid (literally got the 180 page report yesterday) 855 for a full survey on a 2 bed first floor flat I am hopefully buying from a forum recommended surveyor. Building was built in 1840. Maybe didn't need it but I am a FTB, don't know much and wanted the peace of mind.

Kept tonight and tomorrow free to read and re read it before the debrief with the guy who did it.

My view was it is a tiny % of the purchase cost and could save me money in the long run too/possibly pay for itself.

I think there is a bit too much variability. So for your example of add a socket it could be really easy into an internal partition wall with easy access and a circuit with loads of capacity or it could be a solid wall that crumbles when you start drilling it on an ancient circuit with knackered cables. An electrician can spot a lot of that and quote when they visit the property but it would be really hard to do from a photo. So then you are into the decent tradespeople are too busy to want to bother with small jobs and when they do people don't want to pay for the travel time (could easily have 2+ hours travel for a 1 hour job).

But yeah, it sucks. It took us a decade to get round to some jobs because of the hassle factors.

May I ask where you are, as need a roofer recommendation !

I am thinking if I were a tradesperson with no track record yet, I'd love a platform where I could just pick off some small jobs if I were just starting out, to build a reputation. Getting work done on your house hasn't been revolutionised by the internet yet

All these kinds of people are raking it in subbing for builders who have sold big big jobs. Doing small shit jobs for mrs. jones is crappy and they don't want to do them, better to do small shit jobs for Building co who is a less annoying customer and has loads of small shit jobs to do on-site at once so less driving around, less risk, less marketing, less comms, less haggling...

You are better off DIYing or saving the small shit jobs up in to one big ass project that a builder will be interested in.

On the survey finding out from the residents, I knocked on the door, introduced myself (partly doing due diligence on the neighbours) and explained I was hoping to buy the flat. I am in a whatsapp group with 2/5 flats and the person who has lived there for donkeys replies to emails when I ask questions pretty much instantly. Howard's comment just got transposed into an email and this is what they said about mine.

Has anyone had experience adding in a fire alarm to a block of five flats? I do understand being off put by a yearly maintenance contract for a long time.

TLDR; paid for survey, other tenants seem pretty proactive and I am hoping I only will have to pay 1/5 of odd repairs and things as and when, and that nothing huge will be needed (e.g. new roof).

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My view was it is a tiny % of the purchase cost and could save me money in the long run too/possibly pay for itself.

I'd agree with that. Also, if you're spending more on the survey you're more likely to get a friendly surveyor who you can call and chat through things with.

I spoke to mine a few times when it turned out a wall had been removed that couldn't definitively be classed as load bearing or not. The surveyor had done enough similar properties that they were able to give me an off the record assessment of the likely risk.

Wait, a bike shed for one bike per flat?! Where will the rest go?

Five flats in our building and we just had interlinked mains smoke detectors installed. No ongoing maintenance contract. Maybe they asked the wrong people?

Tonbridge, Kent.

These roofers serve SE London though.

https://www.toprankroofing.co.uk/

please can you send me details and ROM cost? that sounds great!

Bank on one flat having a non-cyclist and renting theirs + rest of the bikes upstairs

hopefully get some recommendations of tradespeople too though they can be a bit funny about that

Thanks for relaying your experience.

I'm of the same mindset basically, that I've just got no idea of what to look for. Is your place share of freehold though?

I'll happily budget for a credible survey, if only to know what I'm dealing with as it's a 1848 build (obv later converted). I guess I see other's point that they are poor value for money, that I might just get back a few pages with tick marks on it.

What was the forum recommended surveyor you went with?

Dont need a roofer right now but being in Hildenborough would appreciate any leads on the mythical trade that is a plumber you could recommend. Currently getting answer machines and not much answering.