Owning your own home

A survey should be viewed as a tool to reduce the price you’re paying for the house - it’s the anti-stow brothers open day.

Tried it, didn’t work. Stow and greedy seller couldn’t give less fucks, FWIW house is still unsold 6 months later in E17 Hahahaha I have to hold back daily not to send them a ‘thank you note’

We're doing a hybrid of TTA & Resi, think I'm pissing Resi off a bit but getting the best from each system.

Had one meeting but we're getting Ewald to develop design sketches and layouts and using his drafting / architectural technician to produce the drawings for planning, building control and builder.

Resi's measured survey & existing drawings are about half the price of any other quotes we got. They've told me I can use their Connect service to find a builder even if I provide my own drawings.

Slight dredge - how's this approach gone/going @dbr?

Timely dredge.

We had one meeting with Ewald from TTA, then commissioned him to do some thinking and sketching. In the meantime we got Resi to do a measured survey, which was about half the price or anywhere else. After a bit of digging, although they price for the whole design journey product, you can just do the survey. This also means you're a Resi customer so can access their database of contractors.

We took TTA sketches and survey to an architect who works at Bradley Van Der Straeten (TTA main practice) who was recommended by TTA to do the final drawings.

Worked out slightly cheaper than all Resi. I may be fooling myself but I feel like we are getting a less production line type service, and the input of a Don't Move Improve winning practice on the project. My wife and I both have a design background so have a lot of ideas of our own.

This is for a single storey rear extension with a bit of internal rearrangement. The initial consultation with TTA was a sunk cost (gift from parents) so it's in both columns. The discounted survey with Resi is a referral and only activated if we did the whole project with them.

Bottom line really, is that you can get a measured survey and drawings from Resi for £550, which is half what most people charge.

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I just booked a survey and drawings in for £775 +vat. So yeah you got a good price. I'm in Bristol, not sure that matters these days.

Can anyone remind me of the forum's solicitor of choice these days? One with experience of shared ownership? Any good experiences out there?

We used https://directionlaw.co.uk/ for a shared ownership sale in 2015 , we had to use an approved solicitor from the freeholder (Amicus Horizon) they were decent so used them again last year for a leasehold sale/ freehold purchase, they seemed to have gotten bigger but were still decent overall.

Thanks. I have used them twice in last 8 years and they were great once and absolutely appalling the second time, two years ago. Am v reluctant to use them again but need a recommendation for a good friend

I just bought using Bishopsgate Law, who were absolutely excellent. We had all manner of issues with flaky buyer, incompetent other solicitors and useless estate agents in the chain and it took 9 mths end to end, but they were really good every step of the way - https://www.bishopsgatelaw.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3pCngcij-AIVDO3tCh19TAPTEAAYASAAEgLjBfD_BwE

We finally moved on Tuesday, the day before our mortgage offer expired, and doing exchange completion on the same day because our buyer insisted on it for no reason she could explain to anyone. On sale day, her solicitor took the day off without telling anyone, including her client. The other guys in her office wouldn't do anything as she hadn't paid all her legal fees (because the useless twats hadn't invoiced her). It all got pulled together and we got the keys just before 5pm.

Had to give the removal guys an extra £500 for the delays those idiots caused. Would also recommend Fantastic Removals - second time I've used them, nice guys and worked their arses off.

I completed today. Would recommend Debbie Valentine Knight at Paul Robinson Solicitors. She has acted for my brother in law on a purchase and my estate agent (on his own sale) and both recommend as well.

Yaas

The property I have offered on was underpinned in 2005.

I have viewed the repair certificate after the insurance claim, and it doesnt mention that there was any damage to the foundations, or any repair work either. It says there was some work done to scrape out mortar and replace with a resin of some kind and this job seemed to be quite extensive. The total cost of the repair was £25,000 in 2005!!

The survey I have booked is not going to happen for another week and a half and this has gotten me worried. What does it mean for owning the house? Insurance goes up presumably? Is it possible to insure the house? Do you have to declare previous historical underpinning when getting buildings insurance? Is there a 'statute of limitations' kind of time scale on this sort of declaration?

A builder friend has viewed it in person already and did not note anything looking out of place. No cracks or the like.

Any contractor undertaking work like this should be covered by a professional indemnity policy. Details of this will be passed on as part of the conveyancing process. Your solicitor should be able to reassure you with regards to this, and will help you negotiate a suitable amount off the asking price if it cannot be provided or tell you when to walk away (assuming you have a good, proactive solicitor).

Is it possible to insure the house?

Best way of finding that out is to call your favourite insurance company and ask for a quote.

• it will be more expensive to insure
  
• You have to declare that it was underpinned or your insurance is worthless
  
• The warranty on the work will probably have expired
  
• It’s a warrant on the work though, not an insurance against future subsidence
  
• It’s probably fine but you can negotiate for a discount because if in the future you sell, your buyer will do the same
  
• A survey can pick up evidence of prior movement but it can’t tell you about underpinning work
  
• Your solicitor will be of no help whatsoever
  
• If you know what has been done and what caused the movement in detail a structural guy / girl can eyeball it and give you their 2p.
  
  

How much do you like the house? Presumably you were informed of this after you made an offer, which kinda invalids your offer as a significant material fact was kept from you.

Thanks for the advice folks.

What would you do? Try and argue the price down, whilst making sure that it is structurally sweet and accept the insurance hike?

That's what I tried in a similar situation. We dropped our offer by about 10%. Some of that for the increased insurance premium and some for the likely trouble selling in the future. They said no and put it back on the market.

They sold about 18 months later for about our revised offer.

^ same except the seller lost £50k

Depends how pragmatic / reasonable the seller is feeling and how much of a total bastard their estate agent is.

We simply asked the seller to discount by 20 years of increased insurance premiums which was about £10k. Tbh that probably wasn’t aggressive enough and their estate agent was a total bastard who thought we were a pushover.

We found another house and told them to do one when they wouldn’t negotiate. Which was satisfying but a waste of everyone’s time and money.

Talk to the seller directly if you can, explain your concerns.

Ultimately with underpinned properties you want to be as confident as reasonably possible that

• the the thing that caused the movement is dealt with, and / or
  
• the work done was the right work done the right way to the right standard
  
  

You need to balance your level of confidence with how much you like the house and how much money you are willing to pay.

There is also a point where insurers consider the work irrelevant - comparison sites aren’t nuanced enough but when I’ve spoken to insurers directly, I’ve been told that they’re not interested in historic work over X years (our house was underpinned late 80s). There remains an increased excess for subsidence (£1k) but the premium itself is not high.

The seller is the executor of a will, so im not sure if emotion will come in to it. They are just looking to get as much P as possible.

I think I will have to ask the question, but I am quite set on the little shithole.

@Dramatic_Hammer, you dont happen to know how historic historic is with your insurers? I can research as well.

I think they said 10 years but I'm not 100% on that as it was over the phone. The insurer is HomeProtect.

Can confirm Homeprotect’s timeline is 10 years. Just moved into a house that has had subsidence fixed around 2004. Got 20k off on the back of that and other general shonkiness. Follow-up reports were included in the sale that identified problem and that it hadn’t moved post underpinning. Insurer didn’t ask for these docs, but it was good for our peace of mind. Just need to get the floors a little more level now…

@Dramatic_Hammer and @mattioats that makes me feel better!

completely normal place to have a home gym setup

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85624800#/?channel=RES_BUY