Owning your own home

They've done all the correct things, I am sure.

My objection is paying them £3,500 now when the work cannot start until this time next year.

They won't be paying out funds until the end of next year, for e.g.

That's the plan, just undecided on what I want to pay. Also complicated by the fact it needs loads of work so a higher bid here will mean a compromise on the finish further down the line.

Many leases state that the managing agent cannot begin works until all th money is in the pot - hence the question about the reserve - but if you don’t have a lease which prevents a sinking / reserve fund, you’d have an argument for saying they should take the payment via an increase in service charge, incrementally. Would be happy to read over your lease if it’d help but you’d probably want to post on landlordzone to get some more professional advice.

Thanks for the advice. I do agree that having all the money in place before doing the work is a reasonable goal - what I disagree with is gathering the exceptional funds now for works that might not start for a year.

And to be clear - it's not the lack of funds that's stopping the work from kicking off, it's that the managing agent is expecting 64 flats to organise having BT and Virgin turn up to move cables, for £100/each. It is, unsurprisingly, taking forever for people to do it.

Worse thing is being in a place you like but paying more than you want with no money to anything too it. Unless it's the one and prepared to save again /take time to do it up.

Shame you didn't let me know when the viewings were, could've attempted to put the other parties off.

Good luck with the offerings.

Yes and yes. The photos make the place look bigger and lighter than its ever been

https://www.stowbrothers.com/property/residential/for-sale/london/bemsted-road/TSB28959141

Cheers.

If that garden didn't put them off I'm not sure what will.

Defo Walthamstow.

Oh hai. How’s your extension stuff going?

I'll send you a dm update when I got a minute. It's been...interesting.

Don't leave me hanging champ... mine kicks off on the 19th...

Got a bit of a weird situation - my neighbour and freeholder is a forest school, and they’ve let part of their garden grow super wild. It’s next to our bedroom and bathroom, and this corner has a grate that our shower and washing machine drain onto. The school’s wild stuff has resulted in a mud slide during the recent rain that has filled the drain, and we are without shower. We’re pretty sure they don’t know the drain is there, based on previous conversations.

School director is saying we can get dynorod round and he will reimburse from the sinking fund - since this is the school’s fuck up it seems a bit unfair to use the fund that we and upstairs flat pay into. Am I justified in thinking that?

Since it caused pretty significant flooding I’m also a bit worried about the foundations but maybe I’m being melodramatic

How does wild stuff cause a mudslide? Did they add soil for growing things?

After climbing out of the bedroom window it seems like they piled topsoil onto the log pile they put there

Current situation: last night the drain square bit had overflowed and filled the surrounding area with washing machine water

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Assuming your lease doesn’t include responsibility for dealing with drains external to your property I would request the freeholder arranges a repair and sorts their shit out.

Asking you to arrange the repair is complete bollocks. Unless there is something specific to this in your lease do not agree to it.

You can then challenge the costs later on when the accounts are done.

Luckily the school maintence guy was in today. He got elbow deep in the drain, pulled a load of sand out and the drain is running ok now. The pile of top soil is still there but I’ll sort that out later.

Even if we aren’t responsible for external drains, I’d have been happy to sort this all out myself if it had been my pile of soil. As it is, we don’t even really have access to that drain (except for climbing out the window into their garden)

whats a good place to buy shutters? John Lewis?

Clement Brown fabricate all the John Lewis shutters.
We went direct to them. Pretty basic stuff, but did the job.

California Shutters did mine. Pleased with them.

If you don't want to measure and fit yourself then Shutterly Fabulous is the same company but do the end to end service.

I used complete shutters in Woodford. They were good when I ordered them, and I got real wood at MDF price but their follow up after service hasn't been very good. I'd still recommend them but just note that if you need their support afterwards you might not be that impressed.

Do not use Hillary's blinds they are terrible terrible people and will probably fuck you over in some way.

We got ours from the Sarah beeney shutter site. Pretty good if you're happy to measure and fit then yourself. We measured a bay window ourselves - it's pretty simple.

Shades in Chingford did ours.