Owning your own home

long past that stage - completed in march 2020 !

New mortgage almost sorted, but there's been a bit of a computer says no moment.

New lender says there's a shortfall between outstanding amount of the loan, and new loan applied for.

Could this be because they asked for an estimated loan value rather than a precise figure? It's almost like this is guaranteed to happen.

No bother, they can just tell me what the shortfall is. Oh wait, they can see there's a shortfall but they're not allowed to see how much (!!).

Shortfall based on my documents is £37. You'd have thought small amounts like this could be dealt with more smoothly. Grr. Should be dealt with now, fortunately.

I had that once. Spent the day going back and forth. Wasn’t sorted by EoD so had to pick it up in the morning. Obviously the system had added an extra day of interest by then so all the numbers had changed. 🤦‍♂️

Well this is a bit shit...

"Your Home and Bike Insurance renewal is nearly due.

We have had a change of underwriters of our policy as we were unable to continue to offer the AXA policy that you currently have.

Sadly our new underwriters NIG have a different underwriting criteria, as a result we are unable to invite your policy for renewal, the reason for this is that your post code is in an area that they have identified as having a subsidence risk.

It is likely that this is something that you are unaware of and the risk may be minimal, however I’m afraid as the property is rated on a post code area it is beyond our control."

1. How do I check this subsidence risk stuff and should I be doing anything about it?

2. Are there any insurers that will actually cover my bikes now? M&S fucked it and now Pedalcover are no good to me.

We can't insure your bikes as your house might crumble to dust is a new one.

R.e. subsidence it would have come up in the Solicitor bsearches when you bought the place if it was a risk

Maybe it wasn't a risk and now they're using different data which classifies it otherwise? I dunno. Can you check the data they're using somewhere?

Maybe it's a predictive thing based on how we're fucking up the planet.

You can buy buildings and contents insurance separately. Contents insurance shouldn't care about subsidence, as that's a buildings issue I would have thought

Are there any insurers that will actually cover my bikes now? M&S fucked it and now Pedalcover are no good to me.

Had the exact same issue with pedalcover, am now with laka for the bikes. Obligatory referral code https://my.laka.co/RLR3R

Still a bit stuck on general contents insurance. It was much cheaper when pedalcover did both on one policy.

I've just emailed them a question about basically that. As well as why different underwriters have different subsidence risk data.

Our house is quite near a water way as the crow flies, but the elevation and location mean it's fine. However, there are a few insurers who just do a how many meters appraisal. Which rules them out. It's just the way a particular insurer sets their criteria.

Thanks for that. Will look into them.

Do you know off the top of your head what their max bike cost is? ie. single item limit?

I'm half a mile from a small river but I'm also half way up a hill so I don't see how this is ever going to be an issue.

Do you know off the top of your head what their max bike cost is? ie. single item limit?

I doubt there is one. You self declare each bike along with the value to replace it.
It covers most things, including racing. You pay by the month and it works on a sort of co-operative basis, if more people claim local to you, your monthly fee is higher and vice versa.

I probably live close enough to Hillingon crit circuit where everyone is racing* £5k+ wagons that it is rarely a cheap month.

*crashing

Bikmo are worth a look if you just want a constant direct debit. Been with them for years and they've been excellent on the two claims I've made.

You can set your own limits for single item/payout value, and they cover all your kit too. Lmk if you want a referral code

I like PedalCover because it was contents insurance that catered for expensive bikes. Now it looks like I'm going to have to find some bullshit home contents policy and then do bikes on top of that.

Maybe I just don't bother with the bikes and only get insurance for "events"?

"You might find this is never an issue for you, however, our new insurers NIG are a lot more strict on subsidence risks than our previous insurers AXA were. All insurance companies work on their own rating systems and also have different criteria of what level they are prepared to take on and unfortunately, based on your postcode, they have made the decision that your property is too high a risk.

Their ratings are based on a number of things including, but not limited to, claims in the area, soil types, any mining etc in the area and many others and also applies to contents only risks I’m afraid.

Again, I can only apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you again for your previous custom."

Try Lloyds. They are their own underwriter which makes things efficient.

They included expensive bikes, musical instruments and watches, and had a pretty high limit on stuff that left the house.

They have been fantastic to us at claim time when we had water damage from a fire next door.
We basically got the place completely redecorated, roof repaired, new flooring, rugs, recovered sofa, etc. No quibbles at all.

Lloyds

Thanks. I'll add them to my list.

Expecting two trades round today one to do some work (who has already no-showed once), and one to quote for some work.

Bets on either actually turning up and me wasting my day....

Ceiling work finally done, plasterer is super efficient and even cleaned the rest of the flat too.

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Found out that the neighbour's 'new' water meter (probably put in in the 90s) only feeds the taps in the kitchen, and maybe the shower. The toilet and basin are running off a shared supply running across the back of the property. She's going to have a shock when the lead gets replaced....Found this out when I turned the, what I presumed was now only mine, stopcock off.

Looks good, think we're just going to get down to the picture rail plastered. The old lining paper on our walls doesn't look as bad as I thought.

Builder to quote, arrived early and apologised for doing so. Definitely not in London anymore!

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You could easily spend £100k on the first two items tbh. There could need to be a lot of steel and will depend on if more work would need to be done to the foundations.

Could be worth posting in the how to do a bathroom/kitchen/extension thread. As a few others have done similar work done. If I were doing it I’d be looking to work with an architect as layout probably needs some thought.
It’s a lovely house - do you know that part of Wanstead/Aldersbrook?