Owning your own home

yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp

That was a fun 30 minutes on wikipedia!

If you've not watched four-five videos of sheep being counted by a proper Cumbrian, are you really working from home?

We found out the hard way what not having a rat gate looks like when a rat came up our toilet in peckham..

Bumfitt

Who does your annual boiler service?

Bump

Let me find them

I don't have an annual boiler service as you have to remove a kitchen cupboard to get to my boiler (it's only broken down once in 10 years so I reckon I'm up on that).

However, if I did have an annual service I'd probably use this guy http://www.full-flame.co.uk/
Mainly North/East London.

A chap called James who trades under the name Heat Hero does ours. He installed it though.

A neighbor on one side has a garden that is about 0.75-1m higher than ours. They've just built a climbing frame for the kids in sight line with our kitchen door. It's not that intrusive, but it's still intrusive in that when the parents are with them they have a straight view into part of our kitchen and where mini-H has would have his snacks.

What are the rules on the +2m high wall/fence? From this, it looks like that counts from our side not theirs. Is that correct? Seems like a fucker.

Initial thoughts are adding trellis on top of our fence. It's complicated by the fact that most of the wall is a brick wall, but then there is a wood fence section.

Phone call from the solicitors appointed by our managing agent today, chasing me for £711.

They have graciously offered to drop their legal fees by 50%, if I pay promptly.

However, what they can't do is to show that I do, in fact, owe them that money.

So, for me to pay the £711, and the discounted legal fees, I'd need to want to do so - which I don't.

I kind of admire their brio, offering me the opportunity to pay half their legal fees for chasing me for money that I don't owe to anyone, but I also think it's a bit of a piss take.

I've counter offered - if they can actually show me that I'm in arrears/owe the money (which they have not done), then I'll pay the money. If they can't then I'll pay the £711 as a gesture of goodwill, as long as we document it as such, and they drop all proceedings with no cost to me.

The irony? They'd have been paid the £711 by standing order a week ago, but due to their initial letter stating that they'd charge me £150 for paying them, I cancelled it.

These guys. They have done a bit of radiator work for us too. Can highly recommend them

https://www.pmbennison.co.uk/

Think you’ve the done right. Force them to show their hand. Has long as you got a record of all payments dates etc.

A solicitor willing to back down on fees suggests (to me) they are trying their luck

I hope so. She didn’t have a response to my question of “why would I pay your legal fee when I’m not in arrears and don’t owe any money?”

Any recommendations for garden office/ insulated shed makers/manufacturers? I am in Scotland so it would need to be a national outfit. Would love to DIY it but I don't trust myself to pull it off.

I got a log cabin, came across from Poland, made of 58mm thick wood, with double glazed windows and doors, ordered mine from here think it cost about £6k for a 3.5m by 7.5m all in...

Nice, £6k is very spendy for me. I was thinking I could get a fairly nice but basic summerhouse/garden office and insulate it myself... I honestly have no idea if that is a terrible idea though.

oh yes, not the cheapest solution, but depending on size and spec etc I would look into the log cabin style structure, they are very strong and easy to put up as well.

Our buyers have gotten a bee in their bonnet about the wall knocked through between the front room and living room of victorian terrace (done sometime before 1995) bc they want to build a loft conversion. They're saying that we need to get a structural engineer in for a GSI and that we should pay for it. I'm 99% sure it's fine, it looks like every other version of this you've seen before and zero sign of movement/issue, the process would mean removing the plaster etc and so is not a neat job. Am I being unreasonable here in saying we don't want to this and certainly not pay for it? The EA says they won't pay and will pull out otherwise and so is advising we pay - I assume this is bc they have 3 properties in the chain and are trying to keep things going. I'm thinking to just re-list once the lockdown is over as these buyers just seem unreasonable at this point.

I used rokas.london after @Velocio recommended him. The first gas engineer I contacted couldn’t find the problem causing my boiler to lose pressure.

Cannot say enough good things about Rokas, thanks for the recommendation again! Absolutely stellar service, Rokas took his time and methodically found two potential leaks, one in the heat exchanger itself and the other bear a radiator valve. Before leaving He gave me clear instructions as to how to test over the coming days which of the two leaks causes the pressure loss.

The guy I had in first didn’t even bother looking as closely and told me to just repressurise my boiler until I see water damage somewhere, which would have probably killed my boiler.

Rokas is also a very nice guy and he was wearing gloves and mask throughout the repair.

I think it’s unreasonable to expect you to pay. I paid for my own structural engineer when we bought to check the state of the very old loft conversion. What if they drop out after you paid the engineer and opened up the wall?

If you want to keep things moving, I would maybe propose splitting cost.

If the work was signed off in '95 then it's fine. If you were selling a house and the buyer turned round and said "I'm going to do an extension. Would you organise and pay for the foundations to be dug, oh and put up with the inconvenience of having the work done while you're still living there?" You'd probably tell them to fuck right off.

To put it mildly, I think they are chancing their arm because they are a guaranteed buyer in a potentially uncertain market. But still they need to be told to fuck off.

Unfortunately logic doesn’t prevail in house buying, but why the fuck should you pay for them to find out if they can do a loft conversion without adding steels? It’s not like your selling the house with the guarantee that a loft conversion is viable. Caveat emptor, if they want to make sure they pay.

Are they going to ask for a refund if they don’t get planning permission?

Yeah, this was my initial thought but having people come in, remove the plaster etc is not particularly convenient and would still be £800-1k split and I suppose there's a chance it's ok for now but not if they want a loft conversion? So they could still drop out. Or they could just still drop out anyway.
My thinking is either give them some money off and say we move on or drop out and relist.

@Bobbo there's nothing to say if it was signed off or not, council don't keep records. But there's been a loft conversions either side of us since it's been done and no signs of movement came up in surverys. Just a vague 'that might not be done right' from the surveyor.

Out of interest did they say anything about the partial chimney breast removal and the gallows brackets that were installed?

I should also say that worst case scenario if the steels do need to be replaced then the worst case scenario is about 2ks worth of remedial work to include the new steels, acro props and plastering. At this stage I'd probably be inclined towards pointing that out to them and offering them a grand off the final purchase price. I wouldn't be wanting to front any money up for it.

Yeah they mentioned wanting building regs for those two (there aren’t any due to when the work was done) but there main issue is the wall removal.

As @dbr says this isn’t a logical decision, yesterday they mentioned £8k to fix and today the cost was £20k. As you say it’s a fraction of that for the full thing. It’s a strange time for people and I’m trying to be considerate of that but it’s pretty frustrating stuff. It’s just good to know other opinions on here, so thanks all