Owning your own home

I don't but that sounds like a good idea.

Find the section of the lease that says what your obligations are for maintenance payments and read it carefully in case you’re either on the hook for more than you expect or - perhaps worse - there isn’t one.

The floor plan is there mostly to show which part of the building your lease is for. The internal layout is fairly irrelevant.

The layout will be how it was when the lease was created - which might not be how it was build.

why would there be a stained glass window in a bathroom

Privacy? Also, it's right over the front door so maybe more to do with how it's seen from outside.

I use Things on OS/X and Ios. for that kind of stuff. It's a GTD implementor.

I vaguely use Todoist.

Mainly used for my shopping list but I do stick other things in there too.

Good point. I meant like the og lease floorplan makes more sense. I think I'm skewed by the condition of the window which hasn't faired well in the bathroom

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

Just repeat events on Google calendar, with reminders a week or two before the date depending on what needs arranging or researching

Read electric meter and submit readings.
Monthly, but really only needed quarterly before billing. Has saved the hassle of sorting ridiculously estimated bills.

Energy fixed rates ending
Phone, BB contracts end.
Insurance renewal.

People didn't used to have baths as often...

does it support adding a thing that recurs every N time period?

Yea. But so does outlook or calendar :)

That's what I was thinking, just set a recurring calendar entry.

I do calendar reminders.

Can't think of anything you couldn't set using a # days/weeks/months/years.(Except maybe direct debits, but even then you can get close enough).

Email reminder 2wks before. Then alarm 2 days before and again on the day.

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This looks a bit like Notion only less confusing/more focused

Yeah, if you try to GTD it makes sense.

Problem I have with calendar notifications is that I’m not in the habit for checking them but I am in the habit for checking and doing GTD stuff.

Mortgage chat: I'm coming to the end of the fixed interest rate period (bank just emailed me with a reminder).

The property has probably gone up in value (I assume, based on sales of other similar places close by).

If I get it re-valued, and my loan-to-value ratio changes, can some of the increase be released as cash? Is that what an equity release is? Sounds correct but surely there's some hideous complications...

Should be doable. Speak to your mortgage provider to understand their process and requirements.

If I get it re-valued, and my loan-to-value ratio changes, can some of the increase be released as cash?

Yes. I did this to pay for a loft conversion but I don't think anyone asked why I was doing it.

Cool, was there a name for the process or was it just "please give me cash thanks"

Just part of remortgaging isn’t it? You’d apply for a new mortgage anyway to make sure you get a decent rate; all you do at that point is change the numbers.

Thanks, that's reassuring. It's my first remortgage so I'm new to this!

edit: that makes sense/seems obvious now if changing lender. Presumably if staying with the same lender they'd do something similar.

Yeah I think so - as far as the lender is concerned, all they care about is how much you are borrowing and how much the house is worth. If that means you suddenly take some equity off the table, they don’t care except about the LTV bracket you’re left with.

Sounds ideal. Planning to keep the LTV realistic so should be okay. Thanks.

Staying with the same lender is usually very straightforward if you don’t borrow money.
If you borrow money it’s not a ‘remortgage’ as such, it’s further borrowing, and depending on your lender it may be at a different rate.
Your existing lender will typically use an electronic index value rather than sending a physical valuer (unless you pay for this) so might give you a lower value than expected.

Remortgaging with a new lender tends to have better results with value and rates offered.

Both will be subject to affordability assessment to make sure you can afford the increased borrowing amount, conveyancing should be pretty straightforward and normally offered by the lender for free.

When I remortgaged recently the 'electronic index value' seemed higher than the probable market value to me. If I wanted to remortgage and borrow further do you think my lender would use the electronic index value?

Yes, if there is a higher than expected index value, the lender will normally use this.

If they ask you on an application what your estimated property value is, use their electronic index value.
The lender won’t want to bother shelling out money on a physical valuation.

I’ve been doing remortgages for some folk, lenders have been fairly generous with their valuation figures on the whole. (Less so on buy to let valuations though)