Owning your own home

Only on the additional though now, I believe.

Oooooh yeah. Silly me. That helps!

Still can't get anywhere near 270 though.

Bit of a weird question but does anyone live in a smallish 1920s / art deco block of flats, with no lift?

If so I'd love to get a copy of your yearly service charge if poss?

I live in a block of flats which is four stories of six flats each and we are currently paying over two hundred pounds a month in Service Charge. My guess is that it should be closer to around half that for this sort of block.

the 5% os only on that £1

So I gather. 250k is stretching my range anyway - I don't suppose it'll matter.

When we were buying I looked at a similar sounding place and the service charges were about the same. One of the reasons I told the agent to do one (all of the other reasons being that they were from Foxtons).

It's not listed anywhere yet...

Come and see it. I know I'm biased but you can't get this much flat anywhere else in London for the money. I looked at a lot of shit places in this price range and got pretty downhearted. When I viewed this, even though the area wasn't that well connected, I just thought "yes".

If you cycle and don't mind the lack of Tube it can really pay off to be out in SE zone 3.

I live in a block of flats which is four stories of six flats each and we are currently paying over two hundred pounds a month in Service Charge

Do you have and are you paying a portion of that in to a reserve fund? If not, seems spendy.

We pay about £100 PM for a 50s block with four floors no lift. Signficant grounds through so I'd imagine a bit of that goes on gardening. There is no reserve fund, so ARRGH.

Anybody got a help to buy isa? Anyone done this yet? What are the pit falls?

It's pretty straightforward. Now it's well over a year since the scheme started the banks should be more clued up now. Unfortunately my partner and I were one of the first customers to successfully use their H2B ISAs, so they weren't too sure themselves as to what the process was.

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13189978/

Essentially, try and save the max allowance. Close it once you get a completion date so you (and your bank) aren't rushing around in a panic to get you your money in time for the completion date.

Got Agreement in Principle for £240k. (£40k deposit).

Don't think my income (single income, remember) stretches much beyond that. At a push could try to persuade Bank of Mum and Dad of the merits of investing in a 2-bed...

even if you don't buy @Sparky 's flat, 2 bed is a sensible thing to do if you can stretch/wait.

Anyone who's interested can pop around for coffee.

:)

Can do biscuits?

wut?

Would deffo consider an extra £5k on the purchase price for coffee and biscuits.

Shit. I'd better get fancy biscuits.

wait till you see my set up ..

At a push could try to persuade Bank of Mum and Dad of the merits of investing in a 2-bed...

Do it, rinse the baby boomers.

That's the second time in recent weeks that Amey has disparaged my coffee on this thread. Not sure what I've done to deserve this.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/rent-a-room-scheme-how-it-works-and-tax-rules

This could very well persuade Bank of M&D of the merits of stretching to @Sparky's flat... need to find a mortgage that allows it though.

The second bedroom is a good size. We've got a big desk and a huge bookcase in there at the moment and there's still loads of room for a blow-up single bed when guests come around.

I'm glad you said single bed there.

to hot Eastern European chicks......

That basement flat was also a 2-bed ...

Yeah that's the thing - it's a reserve fund fest, about half the money is going in. And personally I don't have a problem with that - better that then get a £8k bill at random -
but the guys in our block are really pissed off about it and they're shouting about it being criminal etc. I'd love to get some evidence to compare.

Not sure if you'd be up for sharing your service charge statement of accounts but if you were I'd really appreciate it. At least it might calm them down.

Sorry, was channeling my inner-@greenhell