Owning your own home

Hatfield has been a cesspit long before this.

It was a housing developer that wrecked the Hertfordshire chalk aquifer. Bit of bromate never harmed anyone?

Where can I read more about this?

Aye wild

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenscraig_steelworks is this the place the new town is on.

cheers

https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/hnl/land-contamination-at-st-leonards-court-sandridge/

Lots of detail in the documents at the bottom.

Part of the problem seems to be a shallow layer of the land was contaminated. The developers cleared the site, removed the hard standing and left the plot empty for a while which allowed the contamination to be washed into the aquifer where it is slowly washing out over many generations.

Round by me it's the opposite. They get planning for a small estate of 3 bed houses (they certainly aren't homes) then build single digit quantities of 5 bed double garage mansions and do a planning variation. Less work, same money.

Edit: also just seen this
berkeley homes to sue michael gove

Thanks. Will read up.

Good luck to suing anyone like him, another slithery cunt

I did the opposite, tried to open a current account with the bank I had a mortgage with, turned down 🤷‍♀️

Hurts to say it but Gove is right, but it’s in his power to legislate against these massively compromised and poorly built terracotta boxes. If only Big Housebuilder wasn’t such a generous donor to the Tory party.

I mentioned this a while ago, but I have had a pretty horrible noise issue with my upstairs neighbour for a year now which finally has the prospect of a resolution but I'm not sure how to proceed. We're both leaseholders with the freehold managed by an agent.

We both moved in similar times last year, but her flat had a newly laid laminate floor which causes ridiculously loud impact noise (her flat was unoccupied when I viewed my flat). I can't sleep if she's awake basically. The lease says floors have to be "covered with carpet and underfelt or with such other effective sound-deadening floor covering material". She also got a dog despite the lease saying no pets are allowed.

Attempts to resolve it with her haven't worked. When I first told her the issue was her floor her boyfriend just screamed in my face saying I should get my ceilings done and that knows better as he's a builder. I got a soundproofing company to confirm that this wouldn't be very effective, as impact noise bypasses the ceiling through the walls.

She then said she wont ever have carpet as she has a dog. Desperate for a solution I asked the company to quote for soundproofing suitable for wood floor. It was 20% more expensive and poorer performing, but much better than the current scenario. I offered to pay for this in May 2022, and even got the company to visit and discuss it with her, but she still refused and basically ignored all future contact.

I escalated it with the managing agent who finally sent a letter before action last week. She replied saying that she will accept having the work done, but only if she can have a laminate floor and I pay for the entire cost (I assume she wants me to pay for the new floor too).

Now the obvious answer is to say no and enforce the lease, however my concern is that it's a cheaply converted Victorian building with shite sound issues regardless. She could get a carpet and underlay laid cheaply and it would still be awful. I think I need this opportunity to get the best quality of work done.

Therefore my thinking is to get two quotes, 1) to soundproof ready for a pet-friendly vinyl/carpet, and 2) to soundproof ready for laminate with comparable performance to option 1. I'll pay for option 1, if she wants laminate then she pays the excess for option 2 (which will be a lot). The problem is that she will just say no and likely result in the worst result for both of us.

I have all the leverage of the lease, but she just will not pay for anything and will insist on the absolute cheapest option so I'm not confident the lease will actually result in "effective sound deadening" that it requires.

I'm also unsure about paying for work in someone else's flat and liability. I've tried to get advice from solicitors but keep getting foisted onto someone else.

I feel stuck even though everything seems in my favour. Sorry to rant.

have you tried a statutory nuisance notice from the council?
We had one served (Wandsworth council) on an upstairs neighbour years ago. it may not directly solve your issue but it would certainly be more ammunition.

Does she own the lease upstairs? If so you shouldn't be paying for shit imo. And carpet - even cheap crappy carpet - will deaden the sound hugely compared to a laminate flooring.

I think just based on her behaviour she needs a reality check. I would tell the MAs to enforce the lease properly and if she does a poor job you can complain about the dog too. She's on such shaky ground, she doesn't seem to realise what a serious situation she's in.

EDIT: and if your freeholder (via the MA) refuses to enforce the lease, take them to tribunal. You have a great deal of power here and you've been hyper reasonable about it. It may be time to embrace your inner bastard.

Sounds like a breached lease condition to me and upstairs should be made to remedy it.

I offered to pay for this in May 2022, and even got the company to visit and discuss it with her, but she still refused and basically ignored all future contact.

WAC

You're mad trying to engage with her. Anything you pay for might end up being replaced down the line, eg if it gets damaged, with the same as now. Get the lease enforced.

Get the fuck out of there because aint nobody gonna enforce that shit whilst they are getting the sweet, sweet service charges

Fuck paying for anything on not your flat, I’d just kick up fuck.

Go to the council, you’ve been nice enough far nicer than what I’d have been.

Now it’s time to just be a cunt

Well, the risk in this situation is that you kick up a fuss and nobody does anything or things are done but they are ineffective for whatever reason (of which there are sixteen squillion reasons why this might happen).

Best bet is to leave.

But if you own the place, and have kicked up a small fuss already (i.e. letters to council / managing agent), you now have to declare it if you try to sell. Which is a really shitty situation to be in.

Shit situation, I've been through it, leaving fixed it, nothing else would.

Bit late on this one, but we bank/mortgaged with Barclays and have since product reviewed with them.

Process for us was really simple, much easier than our first mortage via a BS pre-covid.

For me it was just payslip/p60 & some tax bits from the other half and all sorted over a 90 min phone call.

You've gone over and above to remedy a situation entirely of their own making.
Many single homes just should never have been converted for this reason, they aren't build the same way a flat out tenement would be.
Laminate flooring is a plague, shouldn't be fitted in thr majority of situations. Full thickness hard wood or even engineered floors are immensely better at absorbing the slap of an inconsiderate neighbours feet, but decent sub floor, then foam rubber then carpet is the best without doubt.
Go the council route, unfortunately you should have in the first place as they will require a decent period, few months maybe, worth of instances where the noise was an issue.
And or just move. No house/flat/view is worth mega issues and fights over, sell up, move on, and absolutely stuff their letter box, car wheel arch liners and anywhere else appropriate with frozen sausages.

One of my upstairs neighbors decided 5.30am was the ideal time to drop their entire shoe collection on the floor from a height, then literally throw thrm across room into a pile.
A knock on the door and a stare that could cut through concrete solved it. I'm pretty sure I couldn't actually say anything as it would have just become a sweary rant.
Came home after work to find a sorry note and some wine.

Our house sale is progressing well - so much so that our buyers' solicitors have just asked for a completion date at the end of the month.

We were hoping to move in July - we're leaving London, and I'm a teacher here working until mid-July before our move, our son's in nursery until the summer too.

We can't lose the sale because I'm not sure we'd get a similar price again and not from a cash buyer, and we've just had a July date for our purchase given a tentative go-ahead.

But we also can't really move within London for a short time, or to Oxford with nowhere to move to.

Fun!

I'm unsure how useful the Council route will be, don't they usually set up a microphone to confirm the intrusive noise level? If so, will foot steps really be enough to trigger it? (not downplaying the annoyance.)

That’s why I said that, it reads as if the OP owns and the above rents. It’s a fuckin shit show of a situation to be in I agree and really nowhere to really go apart from fuck it and sell or become a fuckin cunt and jump through hoops to get them papped out.

I certainly wouldn’t be spending any money on a landlords property.

That’s why I said that, it reads as if the OP owns and the above rents.

Won't make any difference. It makes it harder, if anything. The more parties involved, the more they can pass the parcel with responsibility.

Eviction would never, ever happen, unless there was some kind of systemic anti-social behaviour at play, and from the sounds of it, it's normal use.