Owning your own home

I think we'll try selling on Facebook Marketplace next time

I'm sure this is a joke but right after we bought ours we saw a place we really liked on facebook market place, not listed anywhere else!

I'd say it's 50% joke at most

I've also seen loads of adverts for Strike over the last couple of days and they've made me genuinely curious.

As with most new builds our house and garden is a little bit… stark. The garden (north facing) is just a square of turf with no shade and is pretty overlooked so we’ve been thinking about putting 2-3 trees in to offer some shade and some cover for birds. Ideally I’d like UK (semi) native fruiting trees like damson, crabapple or apple. And we’d plant them outside our garden along the grass verge (also part of our property) where the cherry(?) tree is.

However my mum (who’s just been doing a load of tree planting in her village) says we aren’t allowed and that there are a load of rules about not planting fruit trees next to roads, liability insurance etc etc… what’s the deal, what can we plant and what can’t we plant?

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what can we plant and what can’t we plant?

What the soil is like is also a factor here. Think lots of new builds have about 6inches of bought in topsoil on top of heavily compacted rubble and other building detritus which has had heavy machinery rolling around on top of it. Which will not lead to happy trees.

Would bushy hedges not be better for providing cover for birds? Would also help to make the wall less stark.

^This. We dug down 2 feet and passed the soil through a sieve to get all the rocks and rubble out. Would I do that again, manually? No fucking way- hire machines.

Whether or not you plant trees as well, birds would love a row of this

https://www.hopesgrovenurseries.co.uk/shop/mixed-native/bird-friendly-mix-mixed-native/

I'm laying laminate flooring at the weekend...

It'll be going on top of a suspended floor whose floorboards aren't quite level. There's nothing awful, just the odd bit of unevenness probably up to 10mm or so from the lowest to highest accross the whole floor.

I'm thinking of putting some a combination 3mm hardwood sheets down, and some extruded foam (the underlay that's sold alongside laminate boards).

Does anyone know what order would be better? hardboard then underlay or underlay then hardboard.

I imagine that putting the foam underlay onto the floorboards would level out the uneveness more, but then putting the laminate tiles onto the hardwood might lose some of the benefit from the underlay.

What are peoples thoughts on the situation below?

Had a new front front door fitted, ordered from a local/ well established company so figured we were in good hands. Ordered the door back in mid April with a 8-10 week lead time and were told it could be fitted as soon as it arrived with them - great stuff. After 10 weeks we chased them, door delayed. Fast forward to early August and door is finally at their workshop, ready for fitting. Fitters turn up, lo and behold one of the two window panes is smashed. (that's one layer of a double glazed unit rather than just a hole for fresh air to flow in). Fitters couldn't tell me if it had happened in the van or beforehand, but we agree to have the door fitted and they would order a new window unit. (In hindsight I should've rejected the door but a head full of other things to worry about got the better of me and in it went). Leaving us with a mushy window which I inevitably put my hand through pushing the door open while carrying in the shopping. (No injury but we then had fragments of glass everywhere and I had to get busy with some parcel tape to avoid further glass falling out - again I should've told the fitters to make it safe but dare I say I thought they might think to do that themselves..)

A couple of weeks later (on a Friday) we called them to chase up the glass unit and were told it had arrived - a call would've been nice but hey ho. They said they would come the following Thursday to fit and my partner told them they needed to come ahead of this date to do something about the shattered glass which by this point was spreading bits all over our drive. They agreed and said they would come on the Monday to sort the glass between 08:00 and 08:30.

Monday morning came around and they didn't show and to be honest by this point I was getting bored of calling them so I left it to see if they would get in touch. Wednesday came around and I figured they weren't going to call so I got in touch and they said they'd turned up before 8 and there was no one in so they left. No follow up call, no attempt to contact us on our mobiles (they have both of our numbers), just left. We have a walk in the morning hence we weren't there to see them arrive early but we arrived back a little before 8 so they must've got here and left pretty sharpish. I asked if they were still coming tomorrow and 'apparently' my partner hadn't told them to come ahead of time to remove the broken glass but in fact the fitting of the new glass had been moved forward to this date(the Monday), this is simply not true.

They then said they could fit the glass the next day (Friday), again between 08:00 and 08:30. With my best 'lets just get this over with' voice I agreed and well, yet again they didn't turn up. 09:00 and the fitters called to say they got stuck on another job and would be round late morning/ lunchtime. I'm sure you're reading this and wondering why I didn't simply implode but honestly it had gone beyond a joke and I just wanted it done. Spoiler alert, they didn't arrive by lunch either! I then called and the unconcerned man on the other end said he too had been trying to reach the fitters (sure) and said they would be with us at 15:00.

15:00 - we have fitters!

30 mins later and after listening to what I can only describe as someone struggling to beat a window unit out of a door, we had a new window fitted. After they left I took a closer look at the work done and of course it wasn't great. A couple of small nicks in the front door finish and the unit itself had been installed slightly in the wonk. I mean they're minor points but its a new door so we expected it to look 'new'.

I promise we're nearing the end of this saga, hang on in there.

Jumping ahead to today and of course their communication has improved now that they're chasing payment so I voiced my concerns about all of the above and they said they would come and touch up the marks in the door and knocking £25 off the £1350 price was 'the best he could do'. No apologies for all the hassle, delays, lack of communication. And to top it all off the fitters borrowed our dustpan and brush to do some tidying (they left oodles of glass everywhere anyway) and took it with them so they owe us a new one, maybe this is what the £25 is for?

TL:DR Absolute shit show of a customer experience buying a new front door and a company with zero empathy or understanding of why we want a discount off the door.

In my mind I want to push this and either get more money off or a new replacement door which hasn't been beaten with a hammer. On the other hand I think I'm on the cusp of a breakdown. A new job, 6 month old baby and just finding out our hot water tank needs replacing makes me think I should just pay up and move on.

Thanks for reading, I am quite sure this makes no sense.

Sounds like a total shitshow on their part.

There might be other ways to deal with it but I would be explaining how much they will be returning such that I can consider the matter closed i.e. not challenge it in the small claims court and not write an honest review on Google/ trusted reviews etc. I did this when a flooring fitter did a bad job and they refunded me an amount that made it easier to move on.

This makes me angry just reading it, they sound like cowboys!

I would tell them £1k is the best I can do. Possibly a more specific figure based on a quote to make it good, it would be better to evidence it ideally.

I had a similar situation with a useless polished concrete floor installation company who were supposed to extend our kitchen floor outside but fucked it up. I did not end up paying for the outside bits.

You have my sympathies - it's stressfull enough having a young child & all the associated terror that brings without having things like this hanging over you too, but stick with it - if you don't it'll drive you mental every time you look at it.

Having been messed around by companies like this before, there's no point in being nice - they really couldn't give a shit, unfortunately you usually have to go for the nuclear option & work back from there - it's good that you haven't paid them, don't until you're completely happy.

Email them with a factual account of the experience to date, but make it sound as bad as possible (young child in the house, broken glass everywhere etc. etc.), state that you gave them the opportunity to fix the original damage & the repair is unsatisfactory and has in fact caused further damage and the only acceptable outcome is them replacing the door with a new, undamaged one & you'll be more than happy to pay the full price. Tell them to stick their £25 discount (up their arse) - keep records of everything & communicate via email to leave a trace of all correspondance. Mention trading standards, they love that.

Good luck!

This is similar to when I bought some chairs earlier this year. Turned out to be fucked, company gave zero shits, offered pittance off, I had to chase chase chase. Exhausting.

I think sheer amount of work on is royally fucking with otherwise should be half competent outfits.

After all that fuckery we've had our offer accepted and now I'm shitting myself.

Check with local council and residents' association. Unless you are paying an additional maintenance charge that strip of land is probably council maintained.

Probably getting a bit ahead of myself here, but I'm thinking a few years ahead to our next house purchase (2.5 years to run on current mortgage) and will probably be looking to spend a bit more than we did last time for a 'forever home'. Currently on about 30% LTV ( I was VERY cautious pre-Brexit) but would be looking to move to about 60%. That would mean saving c.20k in the next 2 years which might be possible but seems like a high goal.

My other options as I see it are a) selling then renting for a bit b) some sort of bridging loan

Is there anything I've missed?

Not quite sure I follow?
A) would this be to save reduce your outgoings so you can save more?
Typically the interest payments are pretty low, and far less than the rent you would pay. If your mortgage payments are high, you are paying capital off the mortgage, which otherwise you would using to save/pay rent?

B) bridging loan is probably not the term you’re looking for.

At the time of moving, you workout how much mortgage you need with the equity you will get from sale and your savings and go with that. I think particularly for your forever home, there is no real need to worry about getting to a certain deposit level, as currently house prices are increasing faster than most people can save.
Also as you can port the mortgage you don’t necessarily have to wait for 2.5 years before you start thinking about moving.
It’s important to try and keep costs low, but for example is a £2k early exit penalty all that important when you’re offering 20k over asking price to try and secure the property?

Right now is not the time to move, as we've just had a kid and my wife is off work, I'm working on the assumption that she'll go back to work within a year which is not unlikely, but you're right, porting the current mortgage with additional borrowing could be a good option.

My original point was based around this idea: https://www.unbiased.co.uk/life/homes-property/what-s-the-difference-between-a-mortgage-deposit-and-an-exchange-deposit

If we sell up and for 300k, for example, our buyer will provide 30k deposit on exchange, if we're buying somewhere new for 500k I still need to find 20k surplus for the 10% on exchange of our new place. Unless I'm misunderstand something (entirely possible, likely even).

The renting idea was in order to actually have the proceeds of our sale in the bank, but it would be expensive, as you say. Of course we would still end up owing the bank the same or more, but we'd have the surplus for exchange deposit in the bank.

Edit: did the maths and if I were to put away the difference between current mortgage and prospective (60%) mortgage I could raise the funds in a couple of years, but that will never happen as we're down to a single income for now and got some additional outgoings in the near future.

If we sell up and for 300k, for example, our buyer will provide 30k deposit on exchange, if we're buying somewhere new for 500k I still need to find 20k surplus for the 10% on exchange of our new place. Unless I'm misunderstand something (entirely possible, likely even).

Don’t think you’re misunderstanding anything. But 10% also isn’t set in stone. When I sold mine the buyer asked, on the day of exchange, if they could provide a 5% deposit instead. Made no odds to me so I said fine, and everything carried on smoothly.

Thanks all, good to know we’re not way off base with our concerns. I think I’d be less annoyed by it all if they had been more communicative of the delays throughout and at least acknowledge the issues and apologise. My girlfriend has written an email which outlines the whole ordeal start to finish along with what we expect as a resolution, a reasonable discount or a new front door. The £25 off they offered is an insult and in my eyes the fact they were even prepared to offer anything implies that they know they’ve done something wrong..

Ok, yeah that's the other option in that article, to get the vendor to allow a drop in deposit, wasn't sure how common it is. That's quite the gambit asking on exchange day!

My Solicitor told me (two weeks ago) that the money rarely gets passed up these days anyway, it's just held by the first solicitor until completion.

Interesting. Makes you wander what would happen if the sale falls though post-exchange for some reason.

Congratulations!

It is normally 10% exchange deposit, but most of the time, if you have a property to sell and you have equity in it, no ‘real’ money needs to be sent over.

For example, if a pensioner was downsizing and selling their mortgage free home for 400k, and buying a new one for 300k, they wouldn’t be expected to have to find 30k in cash in addition to pay on exchange.

That would mean that the solicitor would have to send to the customer the 100k proceeds from the sale, and then send back the 30k deposit. (Because once the sale completes, they would have a pot of £430k to send across £300k)

Realistically, a chain of properties couldn’t easily be built if people had to have 10% savings on top of their own property. I don’t think the majority of homeowners in the UK would find that very easy?

So I wouldn’t worry about the exchange deposit at all. First time buyers buy with 5%, people move with no personal savings, just equity, proceeds from the sale of a BTL, without having to find extra free funds.

Renting to no be in a chain is a valid option, though moving multiple times with young children can be stressful in itself.

14 Months in and I'm now a home owner. When I went to collect key, the estate agent wanted to know if I wanted to sell.

Time for a project thread I think.