Owning your own home

I'm looking for a metal railing and gate for a victorian front garden - black railing, possibly with spikes on top.

I've been quoted what I think is quite high, and wanted to look around. Has anyone had one of these made before and have any recommendations of where to go?

We had railings and a gate made up by http://www.gatesrailingsdirect.co.uk/
and were really happy with them. We gave them measurements and specified style, etc. which they helped advise on. Arrived pretty quickly, as far as I remember and good quality. One small issue with some slight damage in transit (scratch to the paint) was quickly resolved.

Brilliant - thanks. That place looks like a really good option

I did all the plumbing and drainage in my kitchen including new stopcock install, with no previous experience. YouTube FTW. It hasn't leaked three years on, strong water upstairs etc.

Started off with Speedfit then learned about solder ring on copper - incredibly easy to do with a cooks blowtorch.

We hired a plumber before that who bodged the bathroom and I ended up fixing a leak from his work due to the knowledge I picked up doing the kitchen plumbing. Bought £20 worth of copper pipes and replaced most of his pipework while I was at it!

Has saved me a fortune.

I am really close to completing on my flat however the sellers solicitors can't get the information they need to get from the management company on some of the enquiries. 5 flats in the building, top floor flat was sold in march and the previous owner was the management co secretary.

Think I'm getting indemnity insurance for the good lease title and some other bits like floorplan change. Question is - is it massively deep to not have 5 month old enquiry responses to questions (when the top floor flat was sold by the same estate agent and same solicitor)?

I can try get a list of what's outstanding and share it

Also probably not great that the admin side of the self run management company isn't done really.

Had my offer accepted on a leasehold flat nearly 2 months ago, but have had no progress form the seller's solicitors.

The agent informs me that they are waiting for a new lease from the Land Registry. My solicitor says this is just a formality, and they can't begin their work till it's done.

Is this a common experience? Is the Land Registry swamped at the moment or something?

I'm just looking at this

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plan-to-drive-down-the-cost-of-clean-heat

Our boiler is in need of replacing at some point. £5000 grant, I wonder what that would put the cost of an air source pump install at.

Yes the Land Registry have a massive backlog and have done for years (leasehold registrations in particular taking a long time) but I'd expect the solicitors to be able to progress things in the meantime.

If they mean the seller has completed a lease extension and waiting for it to be registered - that shouldn't necessarily delay your purchase.

We were quoted £60/hr, equally so for electrican

That timeline doesn't look acceptable from the outside.

Leasehold buying/selling always seem difficult, yours seems extra painful.

Have you had searches done yet?

Land Registry can expedite stuff, when did a solicitor request it?

Try some mesh sand paper as well - awesome stuff and just doesn’t get clogged up.

If they mean the seller has completed a lease extension and waiting for it to be registered - that shouldn't necessarily delay your purchase.

It's not an extension, just registering the change in owner/occupant I think?

My solicitor's words:

once signed and dated, the ‘new’ lease is that which applies to the property, as this lease will either include the surrender of the previous lease and grant of the new one, or it will be a deed of variation which simply changes the previous lease. Upon completion, this lease has to be registered with Land Registry as it is a legal requirement to do so, hence the ‘new’ lease being with Land Registry.

I guess I need to push the seller's solicitor somehow.

Have you had searches done yet?

Land Registry can expedite stuff, when did a solicitor request it?

No searches to my knowledge. My solicitor said they can't do anything till the seller's solicitor contacts them, which hasn't even happened yet.

Our boiler is in need of replacing at some point. £5000 grant, I wonder what that would put the cost of an air source pump install at.

£5000 more than it would without the grant being in place.

Yeah, I looked into an air source heat pump and it was £13k for my small 2 bedroom house. Mad.

I'd suggest you have a chat with your solicitor as it sounds like they haven't explained the situation very well. Like I said, Land Registry can take ages to register a new lease but it shouldn't necessarily hold up the other parts of the conveyancing process.

This or if they literally haven't done anything bin them off and ask around for someone better.

Abranet FTW

That, and having a giant beige aircon compressor looking thing constantly humming in your back garden, and having to replace half your rads with massive ones...

If a system capable of dealing with a 100m2 house came to ~£3K with grant I’d consider it, but actual turnkey costs are several times that right now.

I (as a renter of an old apartment in Berlin with a gas boiler from 1986) have been thinking about heatpump stuff a lot, just because it seems to be a main point regarding CO2.
My latest fictional plan is heated ceilings

Heated ceilings? Surely heat rising etc would make that inefficient.

Apparently it works as a low temp radiant source... But I am also sceptical.

Surely heated rugs are the future.

One way to do a heat pump in a small flat would be a mini split air conditioner. The indoor unit(s) on those are normally mounted high up, so not far off heated ceilings.

Convection =/= radiant tho