Owning your own home

I had to move to wanstead/aldersbrook

A big garden is a burden

For your gardener?

TBF I have a green opposite my house the full length of the road, so kid can just go out the front, but if I didn't have that I would prob be more inclined to move somewhere with a bigger garden (not that we can afford to).

garages are great if you can get one - next to noone parks their car in one now tho so they are just for storage.

before getting our car I was shopping around for insurance and discovered prices went down a little if I swapped from storing it in my conjoined garage to on the driveway. No idea why.

Cars don’t fit in garages anymore.

will likely go down further if you state its parked on the street away from house.

Repped

Also helps stop the pipes splashing when you pull the plug in the sink

For your robot lawnmower

If you want smart then a Netatmo one can be battery powered to work with that kind of setup.

https://www.netatmo.com/en-gb/smart-thermostat

Anyone know if this relies on external connectivity? ie. Netatmo's website staying online? So, if they go out of business the heating will be useless? Or, will most of its features be fine without internet connectivity? Basically, I like to keep my stuff as "dumb" as possible but having the ability to set basic stuff like timers would be useful.

Sounds like yes

https://helpcenter.netatmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/5603989232274-Will-my-products-still-work-if-my-internet-Wi-Fi-goes-down-or-if-there-is-a-power-cut-

In the event of an Internet outage

The Thermostat and the Valves will continue to control the heating based on the current weekly schedule or the last setpoint applied before the connection was lost (Away mode, Frost-Guard mode or manual setpoint).

During the outage:
Remote interaction, schedule editing or adjustments will no longer be possible.
The physical buttons on the Thermostat or the Valves can still be used to force manual setpoints. The duration of these setpoints is then that which was defined before the connection was lost in the Energy app advanced settings: Operating mode > Default duration of manual setpoints (3 h by default).
The anticipation or Auto-Adapt function is also disabled because it relies on the outdoor temperature readings that are not available offline.

All functions of the Thermostat and Valves will automatically resume once reconnected.

https://wltd.org/posts/3-awesome-ways-to-use-a-smart-thermostat-entirely-offline

£250 lolz
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ecobee3-Smart-Thermostat-Works-Amazon/dp/B06W56TBLN

Netatmo are part of Legrand so probably unlikely to go out of business but obviously may just discontinue support at some point.

I don't think many of the smart thermostats work to a decent level without internet. You can generally change the temperature (although I think one didn't even allow that), etc but not change the schedules permanently and stuff.

I picked up a Netatmo off ebay for £60 (mainly because I knew it worked for 2 wire installation) a few years back so if it goes kaput then so be it. I'd be a bit less sanguine if I'd sunk £500 into thermostat and valves and stuff.

No idea why.

Fire risk, carbon monoxide, burglary, etc.

People bash their mirrors.

When you're a bigger risk to your vehicle than actual thieves.

if they go out of business the heating will be useless?

You can probably control it directly using Home Assistant

Home Assistant uses Netatmo's API rather than local access. You might be able to do something funky using homekit integration with Home Assistant but looks complicated.

I thought they just needed a network connection to make any schedule changes?

My Drayton wiser system works independently of Interwebs and we have very ropey internet but stable WiFi. There's very little cloud interaction bar a tunnel for remote access.

You might be able to do something funky using homekit integration with Home Assistant but looks complicated.

That's what I do with Tado. Works nicely, didn't feel that hard and it was my first use of Home Assistant.

Is theoretically it possible to buy with c95% deposit, wait for a while for work to begin, and then remortgage to pay for the work once completed (ideally just a few months later)?

The rationale is to use the money saved in the meantime to contribute to renting elsewhere while the work is completed and to try to avoid paying rent + mortgage or living through disruptive renovations.

I think the problem you might have with that plan is that 95pc mortgages aren't really designed to do what you want them to do. They are usually a minimum of a 2 year fix with early repayment charges attached. You'll obviously be paying a significantly higher rate than you otherwise would at a better LTV. You will need an absolutely spotless credit history too to get a 95pc mortgage which I have no doubt you have together with passing all the relevant affordability checks (not necessarily all that easy to do if you have a mortgage and 2 lots of nursery bills to pay).

Most mainstream lenders will want you to have owned the property for 6 months before refinancing it but some other lenders are not so fussy.

It would be a 5% rather than 95% mortgage - in other words, almost being a cash buyer until the work is completed, and then taking cash out of the property and increasing the mortgage once it's time to pay for the works.

That still doesn't change anything from the lenders perspective in terms of the rules around back to back refinancing- you'll still have a mortgage on it even if it's small so you'll still need to have owned it for 6 months to satisfy most mainstream lenders (some of the more obscure ones do allow back to back refinancing but you won't get the best rates from them and their fees will probably be higher than Halifax et al)

Assuming you will pass all affordability checks then you can either

1) just remortgage for the whole amount needed when you buy the house and they send you a cheque for your building works - stick it in premium bonds for 6 months or a high interest account

2) borrow what you need to buy the house then apply for a further advance from the lender when you need the money. This will save you interest but you'll then have two mortgage products on the go to refinance which might mean two lots of fees to pay when you remortgage unless you can somehow pay the smaller mortgage off first and be left with the further advance

Option one is what I did by the way but I borrowed at 0.99pc so it made sense to borrow heavily. I earnt about a grands worth of interest on the dead money between buying the house and it all being depleted by the building work which was nice.

Thanks, that's helpful as ever.

So you can say to the mortgage provider, assuming option 1, "we want to borrow x from you, but 0.75x is actually for improvement works rather than the purchase" and they'll send you a cheque?

Due to a few reasons, my mortgage when I bought was higher than I needed. Part of the money was used to buy a car and more for improvements. I don't think anyone asked what the money was for as my LTV was low and affordability was fine.

Not sure I'd actually tell the mortgage provided what it is for.

Thinking about putting our place on Airbnb for 2 weeks - the worlds are on in Glasgow at the start of august and we're away for ten days anyway.

Do you need special permission from the bank or a particular type of mortgage for a one off sort of arrangement like this? Or can we just go ahead and do it.