Owning your own home

If the building is under the rateable value you’ll pay fuck all

To be clear I'm nowhere near 10% either. Thinking about the people I know that do it more strictly, some are close (friends/partners) with religious people so perhaps the normalising of it rubs off. Others just normalised it for themselves.

Never heard of that. I just found this online tool that lets you check, and it said that there are no commercial buildings on the street. I think until now it's just been a derelict stable.

Doesn’t commercial property mean paying VAT and then not being able to claim it back if not a business purchase?

Happens up here in Scotland, but imagine it’s the same elsewhere or something similar

My sister is struggling to get quotes/builders for some building work on her and her fiancé's maisonette in North London. Has anyone personally used anyone decent around the crouch end area? Some of it is improvement stuff, but some of it is damp remedial work, roofing, sky light replacement, ventilation which they really want to get sorted before the winter sets in. Cheers

Re my leak/damp..

I've now had 3 people round (1 roofer, 1 builder, 1 general builder who does property development mainly) regarding my damp issue above my bathroom. These 3 were also personal recommendations which is good. Really appreciative of all of the advice on here too.

We've had some decent rain this weekend and I can't see any damp this weekend. It still only seems to be when there is significant weather and a strong wind blowing into that elevation. One neighbour is being super sound on the surface - he's came round to have a look, lent me stepladders etc. In any case, don't care about pleasing them and it'll get re rendered if it needs to come hell or high water.

Few notes below

1. 99.9% sure it is coming from outside. Been nothing in the last 4 weeks. If it was plumbing above, given a professional couple live there and use showers/boiler/washing machines daily, I'd have expected something. To be certain, I'm going to see if they can remove washing machines etc which is above and ideally lift a few floorboards to 1) fully write this off 2) see if any further damage.
   
2. The advice has been it could be anything and I may need to try different fixes (render cracks, render gone generally, gutter from next door, gutter work on our building), and to try and observe when water comes in etc.
   
3. General builder yesterday - made some good points. I have a lintel above the window and that is catching / stopping the water going further down the window. I've seen condensation between the stained glass window and the outer single glazed window - suggesting water is seeping through the stonework. Where the most prominent water was on the plasterboard ceiling before I cut it out lines up with a bit of rock sticking out the wall (tried to picture it). My wall is kind of less thick than flats above due to the lintel (again tried to picture it) which is one reason I am the flat seeing the damage.
   
4. Living in a 200 year old building that isn't proactively maintained (5 flats) and people only live in for 4-5 years, typically FTBs (not taking a long run view on maintenance as won't see 20 years of benefit from doing things properly) is a recipe for disaster.
   
5. Render has a shelf-life. This render is 25+ years old, and may not even be the right render. So is probably due some TLC.
   
   

Bit stuck on what to do next, and also how to fund it. I don't want to live here for many more years. I can't sell it at the moment with damp issues and a fucked bathroom. I don't want to self-fund huge repairs, and don't really have much more than up to 10k spare in my rainy day fund. No money in the mgmt co account, quibbles about spending £200 each fixing the doorbell intercom system recently. If I say can we spend 30-40k (guess number) on re-rendering the side of the house, given it is only me and every other flat is sound, I will be told where to stick it. However, 2 people are looking to sell up and this/mgmt co emails will come up in conveyancing, which plays into my favour a bit.

Might try and get the insurance company to pay for some significant render repairs or partial re-rendering around my window and above it, maybe add a flashing (this was one suggestion - will send water elsewhere), get all the render painted with a silicone render, and see how that holds up before the making-good work is done in the bathroom.

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Claim on your contents insurance and they will claim off the buildings?

Sometimes the weather has to be just right to get a leak, at my old place I had water pissing down the wall and through the consumer unit but this was from a NNW gale and horizontal rain, it’s never happened again and that was about 10 years ago.
There are 4 pitches of the roof staggered in the middle of the block where 4 flats meet and it was getting in somehow.

I have wardrobe with sliding door but the carpet is finished too close to the floor rails. I am after some kind of aluminium or stainless snub nosed strip that could be screwed along the front of the carpet. Anyone have any suggestions?

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will be buildings insurance if its doable that route. Contents already said there's no way

If you are thinking of moving in the foreseeable future, at this point I'd be considering patching up as best as possible and leaving it at that.

Which presumably is what the last owner did.

I'm with ChasnotRobert, if you're not planing on staying then getting builders involved for a complete rerender is opening up a massive can of worms and cost for nothing.

Can you get a hose pipe up there on the outside? I'd blast the obvious cracks to see you you can track the exact point of entry then you can do a proper job of patching up the render. I'd also get some lime mortar in the massive gap in the internal brick work if it turns out that's where it's coming in from.

You might feel a bit of a twat for not sorting it for the next buyer but you also might be making this a much bigger job than needed and a good patch up could last for years.

There are many different profiles of aluminium strap for carpet edges. You could place shorter ones end to end to cover the whole distance.

This is brilliant. I donate a bit away to a few charities every month too, doubt its anywhere near what you do but can't help but think if we all gave a little we could solve most the financial problems in this country.

I would rather use something that could just go on top of the existing carpet edge without removing the carpet from the grippers (never seems to go back down the same). Most of the carpet stuff I have looked at goes underneath the carpet.

I once had a vague idea of an app where you could donate via direct debit based on a selectable income percentage figure that the user was comfortable with and an option to auto select charities based on a few key preference words.

Yeah I like that, or a set amount.
Could make it super easy to change charities and maybe have some sort of elevator pitch for each in app. Sell ad space and/or a tiny transaction fee to make it self sustainable?

There are versions for joining lino that are flat.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/carpet-cover-strip-aluminium-0-9m-x-36mm/494PR?tc=IB2&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwnK60BhA9EiwAmpHZw6VzIkU28pYw0J_cxnHtVCtcodpDrY3vX7FqG1S2q9qDTyvo1HIAaRoC7QwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Thanks, that could work!

is there any benefit in going to a mortgage advisor if we are both on PAYE and don't have shit credit or anything? or shall we just apply directly?

context is that we are moving and in a chain. we have accepted an offer on our place and accepted an offer on our next place. we cannot port our mortgage so need to go in for a whole new fresh one

Some deals can only be accessed through an advisor, and a good one will have a feel for new deals about to come up or deadlines for ones that are about to go off sale, as well as acceptance criteria if there's anything funny about your situation or your property.

My feeling is that you're unlikely to lose out by going to an advisor, but if you're in a fairly standard position you probably don't stand to gain very much apart from a bit of support with the paperwork. Six and two threes, basically

In 2015 i applied directly for a mortgage with tesco bank. They fucked me about so much it was unbelievable and very stressful, emailing me saying they didnt believe i only paid 6 quid a month for haircuts and only 150 a month on food.it was absolutely bizarre and i was extremely pissed off with it all. As it happens i ended up getting 500 quid compensation from them for the experience because they asked so many questions my deal ran out and i went on the svr and was paying a load more interest than i needed to.

But i would never ever not use a broker now. They fill it all in, 90pc of the time the lender just accepts it no questions asked. You don't even need to pay for a broker, lots of free ones around. I use andrew dougal from the mortgage genie now, and have done for 8 or 9 years. Top man.

Probably the better question is "is there any benefit in not going to a mortgage advisor?".

Given that plenty of them don't charge you, they'll do the heavy lifting on the documents and they likely know more than you about the market then I can't see why not.

The only scenario I've found it isn't worth it is when your existing provider gives you a favourable deal to renew but that won't be the case if you're moving.

A mortgage advisor might get you the mortgage that gets them the best commission, not the one that is best for you.