Owning your own home

It’s not something to sign up for if you intend to leave any kind of inheritance, that’s for sure. The magic of compound interest working in reverse…

This sounds a different process to mine. I just got one new mortgage that covered the old mortgage and had some extra.

This was with Tesco Bank (who no longer exist).

If you stay with the same lender they will typically add a second account or portion of mortgage calling it a Further advance, homeowner loan or something to that effect.

When remortgaging to a new lender, some just give you one single mortgage to replace the previous one and give you the surplus, some separate the purposes, giving you one loan for replacing the current, and the additional money on a separate account (at the same/similar rate).

No real difference other than sometimes more complicated mortgage statements.
I had a client with Nationwide who got 14 separate Nationwide mortgage statements a year due to 13 different borrowing requests for historic house moves, home improvements, and so on.

Who's fitted solar panels? Got a quote back from the people rolling out the IKEA packages and a 5kW Huawei battery system is very reasonably priced indeed, ~A$12k... Expandable up to 15kW in 5kW increments, it's quite a neat modular system... Panels are supposedly top notch, I can't help but ask myself 'what's the catch?'...

My parents have, up in sunny Cheshire.

They got one for hot water years ago, and last year got some for electricity as well.

Their electricity meter goes backwards and they get credit from their provider.

The downside is the upfront cost I think, and the time it would actually take to pay for itself.

It might be a bit sunnier where you are though!

How much mains electricity does twelve thousand dollars buy?

The rates they buy back the leccy too have went down and down and im sure its capped too at how much they buy off you.

We work with solar panel installers in Aus - I can ask who the best installers are and what roi numbers are likely to be.

The people who got 5kw arrays installed in UK with the 43p feed in tariff guaranteed for 25yrs are doing well off it

It'll take years to make the money back but I don't care about that so much, I'd just like to be as energy self sufficient as possible... The price of batteries has come down enough to make me seriously think about doing it now, that's just so cheap... Last time I looked it cost that much for a system without a battery...

And yeah, energy companies give you fuck all these days... A mate of mine had her panels put in years ago and was getting full whack, she barely paid anything at all...

But we're finally getting our garage built in the next couple of months, new bathroom's about to happen as well and a veranda will probably be the next job... It'll have to wait, it can only get cheaper anyway...

They have really fucked folk on the prices, yet are more than happy to charge you a fortune for leccy.

And you still have to pay the standing charge, right? I'd happily disconnect myself from the grid, fuck those pricks... I was also thinking about wind turbines, we live close to the water so there's always a breeze around here... Not researched domestic options yet, will have to have a gander...

Its just the way this full net zero carbon emissions thing is gonna go. They are gonna force everyone to get it at the extra costs and then jack the prices even higher that they should be.

Absolute joke.

I used to work on an industrial estate run by a social enterprise who tried to keep it as eco as possible. There was a wind turbine to supply the units as much as possible, but sadly the site was next to a train line and every time a train went past it scared all the birds and they flew straight into the turbine blades. Turbine had to be decommissioned, was pretty sad (but not as a sad as a pile of bodies every ten mins)

If the leaseplan doesn't match reality the vendor has to pay for a new one, or give the buyer money to have a new lease drawn up

Just realised you're talking internal stuff so that's not actually relevant. As you were....

Thanks all for the input on my question, much appreciated.

but sadly the site was next to a train line and every time a train went past it scared all the birds and they flew straight into the turbine blades

Free lunch for someone though, I guess.

Sweet. Asking for my surveyors and solicitor's views on it

Do people use anything to track where things are at?

Offer accepted 20/07
Solicitor instructed 28/07
Survey booked in for 8/09
Tenants move out (owned by someone who rents it out) 17/09 ish
Can then inspect, exchange & complete hopefully end of Sept (both of us are chain free)

I've given my solicitor all the documents she needs and the mortgage offer will be with her soon. Is it overkill to ask for a weekly update? We have the odd chat as & when things come up (such as the leaseplan when she sent the lease across).

That's cutting it pretty fine - no chance of getting the survey a little earlier? As it might throw up some queries for the solicitors and every day counts with those discussions.

Is it overkill to ask for a weekly update

Better to own a to-do list yourself and track responsibilities, ask for updates on specific things every 2-3.

Hi folks, would love advice or to hear of your experiences during a fairly intense sale/purchase scenario.

Potential purchase is going to best and final at 17:00 Tuesday, after receiving a fourth offer. Prior to this there'd been three offers, two of which were "unrealistically low" against our offer at 1% over asking on an "offers over" listing. 3.5 weeks on the market, top end of the price range for the area and possibly a touch overpriced but is one of ~15 houses of its type in the area, which we already live in and like very much.

We share agents with the vendor so they're having us go to b&f at 12:00 on Tuesday. We've been on the market for a week, have 4x offers, 2 of which are 2-3% over asking and buyers with no chain. One is a cash buyer. We were hoping to sell for ~5% over based on a recent sale opposite - same size, layout etc in similar condition.

We want to find out more about our vendor's position but we think (based on agent feedback) that they're in a similar position to us.

However I'm massively suspicious about the whole situ and feel like we're being squeezed. If the fourth offer on our purchase had been higher than ours, wouldn't the agent have invited us to negotiate rather than jump to best & final? Another concern is that b&f is so aggressive it may turn off some of our prospects - one has already cancelled a viewing.

We really want the place and wouldn't be moving otherwise, and we have some flex in our budget but are worried about potentially overpaying, and about the lender's valuation matching the sale price as we can't afford it if they disagree with the sale price.

It's possible (read: likely) I'm over thinking this but I'd really welcome any thoughts/opinions.

Oh and we're in the North East, if that counts

@bobble

agree with @ReekBlefs, Id get the survey done now if you can

We also had no chain and ours took nearly 4 months, we instructed solicitor day after offer was accepted and had a surveyor round the following week.

As for asking for weekly updates, there may be periods at the start while waiting on local searches where a week between update is ok, but unless your solicitor is really good I would probably plan to be calling them every other day otherwise they will just sit on it.

If your deadline isnt important then I guess it doesnt matter if it slips a couple weeks, we had the stamp duty holiday to meet

Can then inspect, exchange & complete hopefully end of Sept (both of us are chain free)

Nope.

We put offer in April, actually went smoother than expected, got keys last Friday (20th August), so about 4 months and from hearing about everyone process, this is above average.

@Chak As it might throw up some queries for the solicitors and every day counts with those discussions.

Exactly, we managed to get some money off after damp was discovered (£1100 quoted, and free work on previous damp works, seller forget to said she had damp done after surveyor said it got damp and previous work done for it, which luckily the seller kept the certificate so it's under guarantee).

We strike gold with our solicitors as they are extremely accessible and easy to reach especially their online portal which made light work for first time buyer going through the labyrinth of paperwork and procedure that need to be done that other we spoken to before them simply expressed confusion when they learnt I cannot use the phone.

"oh... can you do video call?"

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@Dammit this is just round the corner from us. Not too big with a south facing garden and garage. Not too far from middle of town. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111975926?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY