Owning your own home

I'd just have it water the garden :)

Dont think they are deserted, but dead nice.
There is also a secret cobbled road just off Mile ned road which is dead nice.

Whats the height on this? I'm tempted with something similar...

2 main concerns so far are 1) diddly squat in the sinking fund 2) what if 1/5 of the flats didn't want to pay for something e.g. new roof. Don't think there is a contract on how decisions are made.

(1) Pretty normal in my experience
(2) There is a process you will likely become familiar with called Section 20. This is how leaseholders are compelled to chip in for major works (>£250 per leaseholder IIRC). It is hard and expensive to object to, if properly carried out people will cough up.

The best guide is a physical inspection of the exterior. If no work has been done for years, assume you have a dysfunctional fh/lh relationship and nothing will get done. This is cheaper but not ideal if you want to stay in the property longer than the 30 year old roof will stay watertight.

Thanks - Google suggests they’re called Hep or “hepvo” trap

I found the link too

https://www.screwfix.com/p/osma-waste-valve-white-40-x-40mm/3962k

https://www.screwfix.com/p/osma-waste-valve-white-32-x-32mm/1819k

There is a process you will likely become familiar with called Section 20. This is how leaseholders are compelled to chip in for major works (>£250 per leaseholder IIRC). It is hard and expensive to object to, if properly carried out people will cough up.

Sort of true, but not entirely. The section 20 process is required in circumstances where the lessee is under an obligation to contribute towards works which the landlord intends to carry out. However, the lessee's obligation to pay for the works arises from the terms of the lease, and in particular the service charge provisions of the lease. If the lease doesn't require you to contribute towards the cost of, say, replacing the roof then the landlord can serve as many section 20 notices as he likes, you still don't have to pay anything towards the cost of repairing the roof.

fanny trap

Hahaha, something like of these? [edit: should have refreshed—probably not quite, although this one is kind of vaguely sinilar]

Height to the higher joists is 180cm so just clears my head, I have to duck under the lower ones.
I've not tried doing a turbo in there, that was the previous owner.

Buyer's solicitor is ghosting everyone and hasn't transferred funds yet. Currently sat outside our new property (not yet) with 8 movers and a lorry.

There is only our sale and purchase in the chain.

What the actual fuck.

Fingers crossed it's not night in a hotel time.

Still not received funds so not unlikely

got some more ART for the hoose finally. got my dunja jankovic riso in for framing w/new local framers too. lovely stuff

How long do AML checks take, does anyone know?

Completed at 16:50, ended up sitting at the estate agents waiting for the call. Chucked some cash at the movers to stay on.

Had agreed with the movers they would stay if the key was in the door at 5pm, so had a mad dash across town!

I would 100% recommend Harradines as movers, they have been utterly brilliant the past two days.

The only thing I would recommend EHL Convancing for is fireing into the sun, completely and utterly inept.

I suspect the other sides solicitors will be in breach of the contract. Normally the contract says funds should be cleared by 1pm (from memory). Get your lawyer to check this and check when they sent the money over and if they clearly fucked it you should be seeking to recover your out of pocket expenses from the seller / their solicitor.

Definitely, it's been an unbelievable day, and utterly ridiculous situation. I'll definitely be following up with my Solicitor tomorrow.

Wow! what a saga. Lewisham is in mourning.

Harradines made me miserable with how they treated the property I was leaving and the lack of care they showed some more expensive pieces of my furniture. Quite a lot of once-nice things turned up varying degrees of scratched to fuck and I was £££ out of pocket getting a plumber in to fix the pipe their lad comprehensively battered removing the dishwasher (which turned up dented at the other end). They were top notch with the comms and accommodating with timing tho.

Great news. Congratulations.

2 main concerns so far are 1) diddly squat in the sinking fund 2) what if 1/5 of the flats didn't want to pay for something e.g. new roof. Don't think there is a contract on how decisions are made.

Thanks for the tag @Howard, I'd have missed this. @bobble I think you've got all the advice you need here but I'll add my voice to it as someone who runs an RTM (i.e. where residents manage the block ourselves).

Do you know if you have to pay a service charge on a monthly basis? If so, things are more formal and you'll have a structure for collecting things like building insurance and cleaning and the like. In that situation it's not so very different from paying an external managing agent to maintain the block, except that your directors make the decisions, and tend to be a bit saner with the cash than external managing agents (as it's THEIR money too). This is easier in a way as residents will already be used to paying out money for shared utility to themselves.

If you don't have a monthly service charge then it'll be much less formal a process and I don't yet know too much about it so I'll keep quiet on my advice as @Brommers will bollock me if I get it wrong.

In terms of your concerns, I wouldn't worry so much about either one. Many leases don't allow for a sinking fund to be collected at all; other leases only allow it for a specific purpose (i.e. it's fine to have a sinking fund if you know you need a new roof in five years time, but you can't just build up reserves on general principle just in case something happens); others don't allow for a sinking fund at all and any major or unexpected works would need to be invoiced directly. It would be worth confirming with your conveyancer which you have. It's not necessarily bad management not to have one.

In terms of what residents can do if works go ahead and someone just point blank refuses to pay, there are a few legal options open to you. You can seek a judgement - I think the way its supposed to work is that you obtain a judgement at FTT then enforce it through the County Court system - and you can add that judgement to their mortgage (i.e. they can't sell unless they make the payment to your company). But the vast majority of people won't ever let it get to that point. Prior to that you'd send polite emails, firm emails, letters, you'd get your neighbours to go over and have a word, you'd cajole, threaten, or compliment your way into getting them to pay their damn bills, you'd use social pressure, etc, way before that point. I manage a block of 24 flats and we've only ever had to go down the legal route with one of them; the vast remainder are just glad for someone else to do the work efficiently and don't want to do anything to mess that up.

Thanks so much for this, that gets me comfortable! Sales listing said £500 p/year (5 flats in total) which I think mainly does the buildings insurance. Will get solicitor to check all and she is going to do me a report on it/explain everything.

Does the below concern you at all?

"The title for the block is made up of three parts:-

· The lease that you will be taking over (known as a sub-lease or under lease)– registered under title AV96701
· A lease to the Management Company (known as a head lease)
· The freehold (currently registered to two private individuals X and Y) – registered under AV23887

There is nothing wrong with this set up and you should not be overly concerned that there is an additional lease above yours.
At the moment the sellers have not provided me with a copy of the head lease or the title associated with it and this has been requested within my enquiries. Without this I cannot provide you with a full report in relation to your lease as there may be covenants (do’s and don’ts) contained within this lease that impact your own."

Latest thing with the hopeful flat purchase is that the floorplan on the lease is different to the current floorplan.

There is a chance the original floorplan was drawn incorrectly (edit highly unlikely) - why would there be a stained glass window in a bathroom, why would the second bedroom chimney breast be against the wall etc. Having said that, the lounge looks too original (cornices etc) to have ever had a kitchen there. Hmmm

Getting a full survey done and my solicitor is asking questions about it (i.e. did the freeholder agree to it). Not sure how much of a concern that is.... Worth getting a structural survey (incase they removed a structural wall incorrectly)..

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Excellent stuff. And I'd completely defer to your conveyancer on the head lease - I know our block has a similar setup but the head lease contains no restrictions on Leaseholders of the residential block and so the impact is zero. (It does contain restrictions on the commercial element of our block.) But no, on the surface, nothing to worry about until your conveyancer gets a copy of that head lease and confirms what (if any) impact on you.

Does anyone use any sort of project / life management tool for managing their house shit?

i.e I want to be able to have different things on a schedule so I can see what is coming up (things like, boiler service once a year, window cleaner 6 months, felt roof care every 6 months, clean fascias N months).

Going from a one bedroom flat where non of the externals are my responsibility to a reasonable complex house that needs to be kept in good repair to avoid hella costs is quite overwhelming and I don't know where to keep track of 'ok what should i take care of on this free weekend I have'