Owning your own home

great location for an audaxer

any solid cast iron radiator brands anyone would point me to? And with just a normal style radiator, are they all much of a muchness or is it worth paying a bit more? Cheers

I have a friend who works for Castrad if you want me to put you in touch?

yes please that would be great! will PM you cheers

First time buyers. Currently in chain of 3 waiting for exchange + completion dates. We've already signed everything and are ready to go. Apparently our sellers are waiting for 'further enquiries' to be returned from the solicitors of their onward purchase.

Our mortgage offer runs out 29th of July. If we have to extend it looks like there will be a pretty stonking increase in interest rates which will come out min £5k more in initial 5 year term with £150/ish more on the monthly repayments.

Is there anything we can do to try and push things along? We're already ringing the estate agents everyday for updates.

Are you my buyer? If so, I swear we’re in an identical position and are also pushing everyone on our end too…

Unless you're way, way out of London I very much doubt it unfortunately.

Good luck with your chain :)

That house we offered on under asking, they've still not actually given that offer to the vendor. Every time I chase the EA I speak to a different person who says they'll follow it up and get back to me but then doesn't.

I think they have a legal duty to do so? Possibly remind them of that. Sounds quite odd to me.

legal duty

For a given value of "promptly", I imagine

https://www.gov.uk/buy-sell-your-home/estate-agents

pop a note through vendor's door?

You mean a letter right? Those things still exist? They're tenants anyway so I don't think it would work.

If you really want it, just get your conveyancer to send them a reminder of their obligation to do so and ask them to be copied in the communication

How much should I be paying for an L2 survey?

I think the thread view on that is £0 - get the minimum your lender will accept then post photos up here of anything that looks off for discussion / derision. Unless it's some sort of unusual property (very old, odd construction, knackered etc)

Ok, for someone that is not confident looking at houses, and wants someone to come and look at it… how much?

We have buyers for our flat, how much is normal for them to ask to be fixed? Not that there's anything particularly broken.

Somewhere between £800 and £2k depending on how many words you want.

Ultimately you want someone to say ‘this thing here means you’ll pay £x in the future to un-fuck the situation’ but they tend not to provide that kind of useful information unless you push really hard and pony up for it.

I'd say anything that isn't obvious (i.e. isn't obvious to the layman on a viewing) and hasn't been priced in there can be a discussion about getting it fixed/price adjusted.

Anything that isn’t cosmetic should work, ie electric / gas / heating / water / doors / windows / rads etc

Anything else they should have noted already and if they want fixed it needs to be a condition you’ve agreed upon.

I paid £720 for mine a couple of years ago.

Unlike a lot on the forum I think it's a good idea having a survey. It's not that much in the big scheme of things and it may stop you making some catastrophic mistake. It can also help to flag stuff up for those who may not know everything about damp proof courses, sub floor ventilation, etc

Pick someone who you can pick up the phone and have a chat with. I also went back to mine a few times for an educated opinion about whether a wall that was removed was load bearing and a few other things they gave me some comfort over.

It's not that much in the big scheme of things and it may stop you making some catastrophic mistake

Absolutely this

I think it's nuts for anyone not doing a full refurb not to get a full survey.

Yeah, thats what I thought. If this all goes through it is very much going to be a DIY situation for the rest over a couple of years. Cant afford for there to be a massive immediate problem.

Thanks for the advice as well @aggi and @Howard. I just want to make sure I am not being ripped off!

We recently paid £1300 for a L3 survey btw, but that was outside of London.