Owning your own home

Having to deal with estate agents getting pissy as my solicitor won't directly update them (which I agree with). I've been giving full updates so it's not as if they don't know what the position is.

Explained to the estate agent that "we always do it this way" isn't actually an answer to why do you need direct updates from the solicitor.

Other way around for me, my solicitor (who was great for my sale) is being useless on my purchase. Ending up going to the EA and my seller directly to find out what's going on.

What budget? Which? has best buys from £350(Blomberg LTK21003W) to £1,449 (Miele TWJ 680 WP)

Heat pump dryer FTW. No need to duct externally and cheaper to run than typical condenser dryers. We went for a Bosch Series 8 dryer and have nothing but praise for it 4ish years on.

why do you need direct updates from the solicitor

I’m on the other side of this at the moment (selling). I am getting zero info from the buyers except via the agent chasing their solicitors so I do sympathise with your agent. Factual updates from the solicitor shouldn’t be too much of a problem?

They've been provided with updates from me so they know exactly what the position is. They just weren't able to give me a good reason why they needed updates directly from the solicitor.

My solicitor didn't want to waste his time responding to their requests and I'm not particularly comfortable given a third party representing the other side of the transaction direct access to my professional adviser.

Back to stupid sink in wooden worktop chat again -

Viewing places today I spotted one of these that had gone wrong in the way @TW describes - black rotten sealant around the worktop and sink edge. It was fucked.

Looks like if you cut the worktop too close to the edge of the sink, and leave the water nowhere to go, the water gets trapped where the two are close together and sealant makes it worse by retaining the water.

Ours has no sealant, the worktop has about a 1” overhang with about .5” gap vertically before the sink edge. There’s a small gap around the sides and back of the sink. Water going up out of the sink and over the lip is going to drop down the side or back of the sink then run on the tiled floor behind, presumably where it can do less damage.

/CSSB

I'm fucking paranoid about my wooden worktops now, son's crying thanks.

Thanks for all the tumble dryer advice folks. We currently have a combined washer-dryer which pumps all the steam out into our poor quality extension and makes the room really damp. So, initially, I thought we'd need a vented tumble dryer to make sure all the damp goes outside. But condenser looks like it might be ok at not making the room damp? Where does all the water go on the heat pump dryers?

Depends on the model but either in a tank or down the drain. Some have the option to do both.

They work very similarly to condenser dryers but are cheaper to run, therefore much more energy efficient, because there is a heat exchanger that recycles the warm air while removing the moisture. Mine is actually cheaper to run than its washing machine brother.

Looks like if you cut the worktop too close to the edge of the sink, and leave the water nowhere to go, the water gets trapped where the two are close together and sealant makes it worse by retaining the water.

Case in point

2 Attachments

Gahh yeah that’s it.

Guess the people who did ours knew something, even if that didn’t include checking the clearance on the chosen tap when opening the kitchen window inwards.

That's good to know, thanks

sealant makes it worse by retaining the water.

Old boatbuilder’s saying - ‘you can never seal water out, only trap it in’

Did you go with Uzma at MW?

Yes

Our service charge is invoiced twice per year, for e.g. in December 2019 for the first half of 2020, and then in July 2020 for the second half of 2020.

We've paid, since 2010, on what are known as the English quarter days, once per quarter.

So, this year we were issued the service charge in December 2019, and the first half was due to be paid at the end of this month, the second half at the end of June.

I'd actually paid the first half in February this year when I paid the section 20, so we had £711 outstanding, which would have been cleared by standing order at the end of this month, and actually putting us a quarter ahead of the schedule that we'd paid by for the past ten years.

Why am I writing this? Because they have sent our arrears to a firm of solicitors for collection, adding ~£265 to the costs for legal fees.

I don't have anything in writing covering the arrangement to pay quarterly against a six month charge, but we'd done it for ten years - does having done that for so long give me anything I can rely on when speaking with the solicitors?

Should there have been a letter before action? They have gone straight to a demand for payment with the legal fees on top.

I'd have thought that, unless you have agreed in advance to pay collection costs, they can sing for them. Your lease may have more information.

I can check the lease, if it doesn’t specify these costs then you are saying I’m not liable for them?

If you've been been doing the same thing for the past ten years and they haven't corrected you then they're going to have a pretty tough time enforcing a change out of the blue. IANAL but I think the principle you want to be looking at is estoppel.

As far as I am aware, then no.

As I understand it, you should have received a summary of the rights and obligations, for both the service charge invoice, and for the admin charge.

If the charge is valid, you could challenge it as being unreasonable. £265 for employing solicitors to send a reminder letter

Fuck off.

Then, there's the course of dealing - You've done one thing for 10 years, and there's been no quibbling. That established it as how things are done between you.

^ Obvs I'm not a lawyer, and could be talking out of my arse.

God I should have negotiated some commission from UM! She is great though so I'm glad she's getting the work!

I spoke to the managing agent, he said he'd see what he could do but I'd probably have to pay something toward the legal costs. Legal costs for a debt that I didn't owe, and was ahead of the payments schedule for the service charge which is what the debt is theoretically for.

Did I mention that I called the managing director of our freehold association a cunt so loudly earlier today that another forum member, inside his flat, heard me?

I am booked in to visit the Miele experience showroom<

Has this happened yet @Velocio