Owning your own home

Same as you but I locked in in November and people were saying "this is the peak" then.

I bought blind 8 years ago, had no experience of E10

Did the same thing, though seven years ago for me. It was proper 'last chopper out of Saigon' territory and all I knew about Leyton was that it was the shit bit of Walthamstow. I also knew that it was really easy to get back to civilisation (Hackney) and had decent green space, which was enough.

It's definitely changed in the last few years. Leyton is like Walthamtow's slightly chavvy younger brother, except in the last few years he's started to get into sourdoughs and tap rooms.

Conveyancing - I need to do a bit of admin on my mortgage. Can anyone share a recommendation please?
I've previously recommended Uzma Malik but she's on maternity currently, so looking for someone else.
Thanks!
Joe

trying to submit a building notice for getting a rewire done. Why do they make it so complicated, and only accept payment via cheque! In 2023!

Because they want you to do it via a registered electrician.

Do you not need to still submit a building notice?

House fell through . Survey showed it needed a new roof, and sellers having nothing of it . We will keep looking . We even nabbed an old front dor that our neighbours replaced . .

A registered electrician does that through his registration body. The electrician is checked annually to ensure they are still operating to current standards so they can fill in the forms following the rewire and submit them via say NAPIT etc. depending who they are registered with.

We're 48 hours away from supposedly completing, and I just found out my buyer's solicitors do not yet have a signed contract or mortgage deed or deposit. I cannot book my movers until we have them. I am having a quiet panic attack.

Man you've been having the run of this. Something will go right at some point

We had this with our move.

We had everything packed and the movers waiting to leave before we could confirm where they were actually taking our stuff. It turned out one of the sellers had posted his contract using second class mail.

In the end our solicitor pushed theirs to exchange and complete simultaneously without the contract having arrived, which apparently is possible if the funds have already cleared.

Fingers crossed!

It turned out one of the sellers had posted his contract using second class mail.

Just jaw on the floor stuff, that. Though to be fair I've never worked with a solicitor who didn't ask for the contract (unsigned) to be returned months in advance. I returned mine back in May!

Thanks for kind words @Sumo. This thread and the people in it are keeping me sane.

Ish.

Well just know that it can be done and I hope 48 hours is plenty of time to get stuff sorted. Do you have a removals firm ready to confirm who understand the situation?

Lots of them will have storage you could use (at extra expense obviously) if you need to move out before you can move in.

It will feel so much sweeter after all the extra faff.

This place could be quite epic but possibly as much of a money pit as my current place so maybe defeating the objective.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/135348056

Do you have a removals firm ready to confirm who understand the situation?

Thank god, yes - we can confirm tomorrow, they have availability. It just feels so last minute, and therefore utterly terrifying, esp for someone like me who enjoys planning stuff out. But you're right. It'll be worth it. Eyes on the prize!

Fingers crossed that you get over the line!

Hope it all goes well! It is all painfully slow (unnecessarily complicated and tbh quite 💩) until the movers knock on your door and it all suddenly reaches dizzying speed (keep anything you might need at hand or they will put it in the truck before you know it 😂)

It’s listed as freehold, but there’s clearly a basement floor that’s not mentioned or in the floorplan…

I walk past this house all the time, the one next to it has the longest winding Victorian encaustic tiled mosaic pathway I’ve ever seen.

ah ok - probably share of freehold with a basement flat, then? or maybe basement is a leasehold.

i guess that explains the relatively bargain price for the size if it. that and the weird layout.

I think the basement floor is the one listed as the ground floor, then there are two floors above it.

It's got a weird layout though - surely you'd want the kitchen/diner in the space at the back of the basement.

And - I say this as the owner of a pebbledashed house repelling efforts to remove it - that pebbledash has to go.

Is this a terrible idea - if so, why?

As I have been banging on about, I have a crazy idea to move from E17 to somewhere on the other side.of LBR. The main objective is to end up with a slightly smaller, cheaper house and less or no debt.

A sub objective is to move from a big money pit to a smaller money pit, and ideally do most or all of any building work up front so once we are in, it's just maintenance. I'd rather find a place which needs work than pay for someone else's idea of what a refurb looks like.

It seems that we can rent an adequate place for about the same or maybe slightly less PVM than current debt repayment costs us.

So, sell house. Pay off debts. Have a pile of cash left over. Move into rented place. Become a cash buyer. Buy a doer upper. Do up said wreck. Move in. Maybe with a small mortgage depending on how sums exactly end up.

Obvious risks I can think of:
In a "hot" market your cash pile declines relative to house prices - doesn't seem to reflect current market conditions.
End up having to pay rent / pay a penalty for longer than needed if you find somewhere quickly due to terms of STA.
End up having to rent for longer than desirable if we don't find somewhere we like.
Building costs exceed budget - probably inevitable.

We thought about doing that before our recent move. The cost of renting was one of the main things that put us off. But aside from that, that's what we did (albeit to a smaller money pit in a place with a very different lifestyle and atmosphere, so that the temporarily rank house feels worth it).

(I didn't mean for that to sound like I didn't think your move would be worth it - but for us, we didn't want to stay where we were, and really didn't want to have another project, but the trade-off was moving to an area we really like.)

That’s amazing.

There are def 4 stories on that property and the floorplan only shows 3. Basement section and raised GF have a bay of sorts and floorplan only shows one bay.

Worth taking a look at but I don't think you are getting the whole building.

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