Owning your own home

Its on the Dulwich estate, it’s down the road from me (both where i am now and where we are trying to buy)
I pay a ground rent to Dulwich and the new place (touch wood) is leasehold owned by them and built for the estate by Wates/Austin Vernon the estate architect, think the Kingswood estate was built by Camberwel/LCC if my local history is correct.

Oh and welcome to the hood.

We ended up with a DFS Patterdale (I think) was a bargain £899 I think for each 3 seater.

Thanks mate! Looking forward to being there!

It could be good to pick your brain maybe. Basically, the house is freehold, and the freehold was purchased from The Dulwich Estate in 1979 (i think), but my solicitor doesn't know if there was either any ground rent owed before the freehold purchase, or if there has been any costs owed to them since then.

I think the estate is struggling to find any records in answer to my solicitors enquiries, and when the house is transferred to us, any monies owed would be as well. Apparently in ordinary circumstances you can put a covenant in the purchase agreement that mitigates against this, but the house is being sold by the executor of a will, so it is proving to be difficult to go down this road.

Did you have any experience with the estate struggling to find records? Or whether it would have been difficult for a resident to dodge paying them ground rent (obv you wont have experience of it in the 70s!)?

The Estate is probably better than most freeholders as they are not absent, have an estate office and yearly budget of a few million. also the residents are active with groups for each estate/block development so there is a bit of weight behind it’s leasholders.
sounds like your property may have always had a ground rent to the estate even though it was built by the council. (The estate website details it’s history if that is of interest) my current property built in 1986 is leashold but not to the estate so it was a bit of infil and likely sold to a developer, think we pay £30 or something a year to Dulwich.
Can’t believe they don’t have records as they would have collected on each propety since it was built even if it was bought under right to buy at a later date, can’t your seller just get indemnity insurance? it’s a few hundred quid, we will have to do this on my partners place as there is a missing document the land registry/Islington council cannot find from 1983 even though the current lease supersedes that.

edit:
your property might be an ‘enfranchised property’.
https://www.thedulwichestate.org.uk/media/2281/the-managers-certificate-march-2021-signed.pdf

you will be on the red ‘compulsory acquired area on this map:

https://www.thedulwichestate.org.uk/about-us/celebrating-400-years/post-war-planning

We'll be doing that soon in the study (maybe bedrooms too if we like it), the warehouse is super close to you.

They also do cool Lino/Rubber which I think we may use in the downstairs loo.

we got the rubber for our kitchen from here too and it seems decent (link to post with photo).

found the lino felt a bit warmer underfoot, but went for rubber as it’s sitting on top of the hot water pipes and the rubber is rated for underfloor heating.

we also got the full pack of samples (paid) so if there’s any you’re thinking about just shout and I can pop them in the post.

Cheers, I've dropped him an email.

Rep

You get three kinds of roofers....

Those guys, scruffy, messy, do around 2-4 hours work in a 8.5 hour stand around and shout and swear about every single thing thats NOT to do with roofing or the job at hand. Avoid, however quite tricky as likely explains 3/4 of all roofers.

The tidy guys, turn up, graft, and I mean absolutely graft rain or shine, they just get on with it. Still gonna shout and swear, but usually about things that are needed on the job. Sort of tidy up afterwards but don't really need to, as they haven't stuffed your neighbours chimney pots, valleys and gutters with bottles of piss, greggs wrappers and empty tobacco bags.

The guys that never answer the phone or even turn up, at all.

You seem to have the first variety, I have the third variety, wish I had the tidy guys. Whats mental is the scruffy buggers and the tidy guys will charge the same price.

Roof over the way from us got the scruff buggers. Worst scaff I've ever seen, the stuff at the back apparently fell over but didn't see it, just heard about it. Spent 8 days in total on the roof to repoint some chimneys, recap (they just slapped over the top of the old crumble) with 5 to 6 guys, and some lead work. In that time they might have done 2 or 3 days work. The rest of the time were just sat on their phones watching the football, and I'm not exaggerating.

When they left they broke a gutter, and forgot to put up all the sky dish and antenna. So folks living in the building are now trying to figure out how to get someone up there to put it all back up again. They also have a bill for over £20k, when in my book its about £4k + scaff, so maybe £7k.

Yeah rubber is nice. Have it in our utility. Maybe I should just go rubber or even vinyl.

Yeah I made a mess of laying rubber in the utility too.

Anyone got experience of holding sellers to account for a ‘gentleman’s agreement’?

Seller asked for £5k extra and in return he’d go into rented and we would be chain free.

Three months later I’m ready to complete and he’s holding off to complete on his new purchase.

Stupidly never got it in writing. Do I threaten to reduce the offer by 5k?

Also, estate agent just disappeared from Stanfords without a trace, didn’t update anyone she was leaving, having to start negotiations from scratch with a new agent. Love this process!

Anything in writing?

Just this email

“ Thank you for your patience on this one.

I have, and the vendor has said that if you are able to increase to closer to the asking price, he will go chain free and go into rented so you are not waiting.

Please let me know your thoughts and I will go back to XXXX”

I'd say reduce by 5k (but easy for me to say as I'm not the one dealing with the stress!)

I'd forward the email you have with your comment that you're reducing by 5k given the vendor isn't keeping to their proposal.

You can't 'hold them to it' per se - you don't have a contract yet. So it's purely bargaining and what they'll accept

Just chip the cnut on the day and see how he deals with it

House price growth at 10% a year despite squeeze on finances

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62751244

It’s great putting your big boy pants on but a kick in the bollocks can really hurt...

Maybe suck it up and go half way? which reading between the lines is what its being suggested in the reply (or that’s how i read it)

should have been written into contract but hindsight and all that..

I guess it also depends on the purchase price, here in Cumbria you can buy a terraced house for £30k so £5k is a big chunk of the money moving around.

You obviously have to weigh things up but especially in London I think a lot of people allow themselves to act like total berks

Has anyone seen an analysis of fuel bills vs mortgage affordability?

Not sure if “allow themselves” is fair. Kind of removes agency, like you’re being possessed by a demon. Some people are just berks.

The 'culture' you step in to when buying a place in London is largely run by folks pushing the boundaries of what is morally acceptable - estate agents.

removes agency

Wait is removing agencies an option?

The 'culture' you step in to when buying a place in London is largely run by folks pushing the boundaries of what is morally acceptable - estate agents.

This is huge. And the culture changes too. When I first bought five years ago the culture was that I was buying the last two bed flat in Walthamstow available for £190k. It had been on the market for six months with no nibbles. The main pain in the arse was the fact that the seller was clearly insane.

When I went to buy again last year the culture had ENTIRELY shifted. The estate agents were hungrier, they would push you into things you only worked out later were entirely unethical. They would openly lie to your face. It was shocking how different it was. And the knowledge of how hard-nosed the culture is means you as a buyer/seller are complicit in it to the extent you allow it to infect your purchase. And no-one can entirely avoid it.

I allowed an estate agent to put up our flat for £25k under our minimum a few years ago - it was a five second conversation I barely thought about at the time, I just trusted them to know their business. When we sold, the EA got everyone who made an offer to write a letter. The letters from people offering £22k under our minimum and genuinely hoping they get it still haunt my sleepless nights. Its fucking awful out there.