Owning your own home

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You’re over thinking it. At half-three in the morning!

A TA6 can be filled in at any point, most often it’s after an offer is accepted. The other buyer may have backed out before they’d even seen it.

The ‘couldn’t get a mortgage’ line may or may not be true and could mean all manner of things. The bank might have found a CCJ the buyer didn’t know they have, they buyer may have not declared a loan, sometimes buyers don’t even get an agreement before offering, maybe the agent didn’t check last time hence was super keen this time.

Keep working through as diligently as you are and you’ll not miss anything.

On the other point - no need to be there for the survey, indeed many surveyors will insist you’re not.

https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/gas-safety/gas-safety-certificates-records/

Should be able to check if it has a gas safety certificate here.

Holy fuck, that feels a bit off…

Gotta say ive never heard of a flue certificate.

Surely it's just part of the boiler commissioning? IE you can't commission it if the flue doesn't meet regs?

I spotted the flue was quite close to a window (probably illegal) and had a plume kit fitted (against the estate rules)

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I think there is a lot of confusion here and people dont under stand.

In england if you fit a boiler, you need do the building regs cert which you do via gas safe when registering the appliance. In scotland you dont need to do that.

In terms of what you are asking you fill in the benchmark book when commissioning, so you could say that is your cert but as a separate cert I've never heard of it never mind provided one.

It’s to do with property on the Dulwich estate, you have to apply for a flue and plume kits are not allowed.
I noticed the flue was high up between the kitchen and bathroom windows and very close to 30cm but not easy to measure on the 6th floor, it’s probably building regs legal as the plume has a bend in it moving it away from the closest window but looking at the drawing on the certificate it’s not leaseholder legal as it’s in the wrong place.

Your photographer is a vampire. You gotta revoke their permission to enter ASAP 😭

Following on from my estate agent pricing question ... they've come back with a valuation at least 10-15% higher than we expected. Is that normal? Are they just trying to get our custom by saying they can sell it for more?

What did it said on Zoopla?

Maybe you underestimated but, it's fairly standard to get a couple round and gauge who's bullshitting and who's more accurate.

It obviously pays to be in the realms of possibility with your pricing as mortgage lenders won't lend if the valuation comes in under the sale price and the buyer can't come up with the difference.

I think we spoke to 4 EAs. 1 of them wanted to go 50k higher, one of them 25k higher, the others went for what we thought it was worth. 50k higher guy was from Foxtons, 25k guy was from Nested, both explained it by just trying to get in to the higher search filters in Zoopla. We ended up selling for 10k under the original listing with a local agent.

Isn't it pretty standard for agents to list for around 10% above the true property value? It is their job to drive the price up.

I think the pre pandemic and folk over paying mega has helped blow the egos up of these EA's

Makes a change from Chestertons listing tidy NW5 2-beds for half a cig…

Assuming they stuck a camera on a tripod, wireless trigger, stepped outside the door to shoot it (spot the shadow) and photoshopped it out later.

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Very common

Is that common to have sewer pipes running through people's gardens?

Yes. Quite common for pairs or whole rows of houses to have foul drains linked together along the back then joining the main sewer.

Your solicitor should do a drainage search which will usually show where the drains run. It’s not always comprehensive though.

Ask your surveyor to tell you what they find. They’ll be able to work it all out by lifting covers on inspection chambers.

The proper way of doing this is to obtain a build-over agreement from the local water authority. The architect or structural engineer working on the extension has to submit drawings of the alternations to the drain layout which then get signed off before works can start.

Our extension would have been on top of a manhole. It was sealed up and a new one put in the garden to give rodding and maintenance access to the drain.

Thames Water will provide an “asset location search” which shows the drains and supply etc (though ours wasn’t accurate at all). Your local authority should be able to provide the same, along with an answer as to whether a build over agreement was issued.

If there’s access from both sides, ie manholes in both neighbours gardens, and at the front, it’ll probably be fine. If they just sealed the manhole up it’s very unlikely anything nasty would make it through the concrete slab floor of a modern building.

See what the water authority say, but I’d use it as a bargaining chip rather than a deal breaker.

Like who is responsible for which side of the boundary features

If they have written something like "left hand wall belongs to us, right hand wall belongs to neighbours" there is a high chance that it's received wisdom bollocks.

I don't remember seeing any manhole nearby or in the garden

It used to be common to put these under kitchen islands with covers you could lift, but memory tells me that's against regs now?

If there’s a non-double sealed locking manhole cover under the floor somewhere, I’d be asking them to put it right.

Thames Water don’t even allow those inside.