Owning your own home

Thanks for the reply! Have PM'd...

Sounds similar to mine, I think it's standard around there for some reason. I own a share of the freehold with the guy downstairs which means I didn't have a cost for the permission for the conversion. He rents it out but is responsive enough (although to be honest pretty much all it involves is us paying buildings insurance each year).

Sliding doors are mint. I'm so excited about this. Not self fit so not DIY thread.

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OH FUCK. I need to get something fitted that makes the right noise...

Finger on one nostril, exhale through the other.

Funny you should say that... just had the old one ripped out for pretty much that exact reason.

I've learned that when dealing with legal stuff you should look out for odd (wrong) spellings. My freeholder is actually Rinestone Properties Limited. The link between them and the previously mentioned grgroup.co.uk is suddenly much clearer.

So after my mortgage application with HSBC was declined I went through London and Country for the exact same deal, same interest rate, same amount borrowed, same term, same fucking everything and the response? Application approved.
No idea why it went through second time around but we're much releived as the vendors were getting fed up of waiting.

L&C were great ... Right up until the point where the application actually went to the bank then they became dificult to get hold of, would tell us dates that would slip and slip, didn't pass on all the relevant information to HSBC, would respond to emails without actually answering the questions I'd asked or acknowledging what I was saying. All in all a very frustrating experience and I'm glad I won't have to deal with them any more.

Paid over £700 in various fees vesterday and that's just the beginning!

Mortgage brokers usually put applications through a specialist intermediaries team, direct applications tend to go through a retail applications team. As a rule, anyone who is any good in the retail team will move to the intermediaries team so staff tend to be better, quicker and applications don't get sent back or rejected for stupid reasons.

I've had a direct team tell me that they'd estimated I should be spending over three grand a month on going out which made my mortgage unaffordable. That's a lot of Nando's.

Interesting, that's good to know for next time!

When I dealt with L&C I dealt with one person for all the application in terms of selecting a mortgage and then, when I decided which one I was applying for, was passed over to someone else at L&C for the actual application.

The person I was switched to was fine but I imagine that once you're committed you could end up with someone who is a bit crap.

peak hipster

When I dealt with L&C I dealt with one person for all the application in terms of selecting a mortgage

To be honest, the guy who did this part for us was fine apart from his telephone manner (just seemed like I was being rushed a lot). But I could call him and he would answer, I could email him and I'd get an appropriate response, etc etc.

when I decided which one I was applying for, was passed over to someone else at L&C for the actual application.

This is where is all fell apart. Could we get hold of the lady on the phone? Could she provide us with accurate dates? Could she actually pass on the all of the information I'd sent through so we didn't incur unnecessary delays? Nope.

That said, they did get us a mortgage but I was ecpecting a bit more in the way of professionalism and reliability throughout the second part. I suspect because of their business model the staff are fairly busy and end up having to rush things to get through the volume of applications they need in order to make money.

Anyway, enough of my moaning!

Amusing..

Just had an email from a guy that purchased a flat from me 7 years ago. He is re mortgaging and has just been told that the original solicitors never transferred the freehold of the flat into his name upon completion. I still own it....of course I will sign the paperwork to transfer it over, but is that just not a huge fuck up ?

It is a F** up on their part. Not great for you either - you will be a bare trustee of the property in their favour, so you owe the new buyer a fiduciary duty

'so you owe the new buyer a fiduciary duty'

What does this mean ? no mention of cash from my buyer and i'd be pretty pissed off if i get a letter from their solicitor asking for any.

Sorry - didn't mean my first post to make you panic.

In practice maybe not much (as there isn't much you can do to deal with the property), but by operation of law you do technically owe them a duty to act in their best interests.

It doesn't mean they will / can ask for money from you - just that you technically own the property for them on trust so are bound to be careful with it, give them any proceeds you receive in respect of it, etc. Simplest thing you can do is execute any transfer to make the legal title to the property move to them, and then any duty you owed to them would disappear.

It would be more in point if e.g. the property had a tenant now and someone was paying rent. They might need to pay that to the legal owner (you) but the point is that you owe a duty to the beneficial owner so you couldn't trouser it for yourself just because the legal title is still in your name.

Ahh I get you....your answer is clearer than google !

Thanks

I need a bit of advice on where to sell 'vintage' cast iron heaters and floor tiles

My brother and I are refurbishing my grandparents' house in France and I am trying to sell the cast iron heaters and possibly the floor tiles if there is sufficient value in them.

• Cast iron heaters (x9 in total) are from the early 1960's. I have all the measurements.
  
• Tiles are from the early 1920's. 4 different rooms / patterns (I have the sqm sizing)
  
  

I can deliver across London when I get Champagne deliveries, so if you know places that are likely to be interested in buying, please let me know.

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I am trying to get a better price in the UK / London.

I have been told that the tiles are relatively easy to remove since they were laid directly on sand but there will definitely be breakages.

Prices on site in France appear to be around 10€ per sqm of 'vintage' tiles (as seen on leboncoin.fr).
There is approximately 55 sqm of tiles, that's about 550€ worth if it all goes well. Plus time labour cost saving by not removing them myself.

I don't have a clue how much they would be worth if lifted, stacked and delivered to London so I am trying to see if it is worth selling them at all...

As for the cast iron heaters, the value is only having 9x of them from the same manufacturer so would go nicely in 3 bedroom house. Individual heater value on eBay is about £25 so I would be better off scrapping them in France if I can't get a half decent price in London.

Has anyone had any experience of forming a Residents Association? Our managing agents provide fairly poor value for money from what I can see (£200 pcm service charge, the place is filthy, drug use in communal areas abound, and they're running private businesses next to our communal space which basically encourages antisocial behaviour). Ideally I'd like them to just take care of these problems but my feeling is that they're unlikely to without a bit of organisation.

I wonder if selling directly to an architectural salvage place is possible?
Mind you, I think they are some funky tiles with a limited market, and maybe somewhere retail doing more 'designer' interiors might be interested.

give lasco a ring. they might even help you remove them.

I have emailed circa 10x architectural salvage places this AM to ask if they are interested so I will see.
It is a shame to throw them away but equally, you can't just keep everything.

In an ideal world, I'd like 1,000€ and someone to lift all tiles + cast iron heaters straight from France.

Lovely tiles, interested to hear how much you get offered for them. I'd leave em down, redo the grout and clean them up but can see they're not to everyone's taste.