Owning your own home

About 4 months after we completed on our first purchase our conveyancer sent an amended invoice saying we still owed them £1.13.

Send them 13p. By cheque. Await their response.

But then they'd probably have to charge more to make up for the reduced workload they could take on.

Yeah - and even if you chose not to compete on price, as the business owner, why wouldn't you take on more work as it's offered to you.

I mistakenly went through one of those bulk conveyancing firms last time I bought a house and next time I'd pay double - triple their cost to have what in any other service would be classed as reasonable / respectful customer service.

About 4 months after we completed on our first purchase our conveyancer sent an amended invoice saying we still owed them £1.13

Send them £1.14. Ask for the change by cheque. Never cash that cheque. Fingers crossed it'll keep showing up in their reports into the future :)

The problem is the ones who are willing to be good quote appropriately

anyone done a loft conversion on a place like this with 3 way pitched roof?

to put a dormer in will i guess involve building up the side wall and making the roof at the front into a single pitch. I saw one place that had done it over the road and I must admit it looked slightly more ugly than a standard full length dormer which is a fairly ugly thing in any case.

possibility or better to forget it?

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We're having it done at the moment, assuming you mean a hip to gable conversion?

having just googled that, turns out that is what i mean :)

i guess it's a bit more complex / expensive than converting a non hipped roof?

We had a double hip to gable (both sides) loft extension with Dutch gable ends to keep within permitted development. The house looks different to before but since it's different from the neighbours anyway we didn't really think it mattered.

ah - good to know it is a thing, then.

more complex / expensive

11 years ago when we did it a basic conversion was about £40k and a hip to gable added £10k.

ok, so say £75-£80k now, then?

I think that’s maybe slightly over the ranges seen on the bathroom/kitchen thread but not far off

ideally would have a shower room in it, too which will add £

I think all in, including decorating and furnishing, ours will come in at around that figure. The actual building cost is £60k.

thanks all. it's all options at this point, just trying to work out what we could afford with different houses around here, how we could possibly configure etc.

it looks like it may come down to either an ok or maybe slightly basic kitchen and a nice loft bedroom with shower room (i can't bring myself to write en suite) or either a basic loft bedroom or possibly no loft bedroom but a nice kitchen extension with "dining" room knock through.

I think going for both is gonna be roughly equivalent to staying where we are, financially.

i can't bring myself to write en suite

We didn't go for en suite. Far more useful for the household to have a second bathroom that is available to all.

Yes, good point.

QQ do people wear shoes in their house?

not generally but i dont take them off every time i come in from the garden or anything either. but my house is a tip anyway

Yes, but our carpets need replacing.

If it's wet outside, or there's any chance there's any dirt on the shoes then I take them off at the threshold.

Otherwise, if it's dry and I'm sure there's no dog/fox/whatever shit on them, then I may not take them off.

If/when we replace the carpets there will be a strict no shoes indoors rule for at least a few weeks.

Sometimes downstairs (which is hard floors). Almost never upstairs (which is mostly carpet).

No. I ain't cleaning the floors that often. I have house slides for warmth.

No, though I will walk through if i’m about to leave to go get something if the mrs isn’t there but not on the rug. current floor is modern oak click type with a synthetic finish.
New place has painted floorboard bedrooms and oiled iroku in lounge so it’s definitely no outdoor shoes, we are thinking of getting some of those guest/hotel slippers.

Can’t believe people have fitted carpets downstairs now, it’s a weird English thing that seemed fine when i was younger but now don’t really understand.

No, seems very weird that anyone would. Even with only one room carpeted, who likes cleaning that much?!

Definitely no shoes being worn in the house