Owning your own home

I think you've persuaded me. Thanks.

Now to sort out the backsplash dispute.

We have honed (less shiny) black granite in our kitchen. We splurged on this as we liked the look and thought (ha!) it was bomb-proof and hassle-free. From the get-go it was a bastard to maintain. Anything acidic etches it: lemon juice, coffee cups, vinegar, tomatoes etc etc etc till dead. You cannot leave that shit for long or you get lighter-coloured marks, which are basically impossible to remove short of professionally buffing them out and resealing. At first this drove us to distraction and we had the fitters back time and again. The claimed they has used the wrong sealant/ applied it in the wrong temperature and many attempts were made to create a better barrier. I subsequently read that honed surfaces are more porous and prone to etching than fully polished; and I also wondered about the quality of the slab in the first place. Anyway, we weren't happy and felt we had been misadvised and refused to pay the 50% balance. They eventually stopped calling. Three years down the line none of this matters.

tl;dr: it's a work surface and it will get knackered over time so who cares.

My roof may need redoing. It's an old Edwardian terrace so has a pretty sizeable roof plus flat roof. I know the flat roof needs recovering not sure to the extent of work that the main roof requires. At the worst end I could be looking at £20k or so.

My mortgage is up for renewal and, due mainly to increasing property prices, I'll probably be looking at an LTV of 50% or so. Theoretically I assume could roll the cost of the roof into a new mortgage.

Obviously the downside of this is that I'll be paying interest at a higher rate than interest I'll be making on the money I've saved sitting in my bank account.

Any other thoughts on whether this is a good/bad idea before I start looking at the numbers in detail.
Cheers

At 50% LTV you can have a lovely flexible / offset mortgage where you only pay the interest on the difference between what's in your current account and the loan.

So if you have a house worth £500k with a £250k mortgage and £50k in the linked current account you only pay interest on £200k. If you then need to do the roof you take out the £20k and start paying interest on £220k.

Most lenders do them.

You need to be the restrained type though, else you'll end up with many, many bikes.

@GF

I think you get the picture now, but your missus is definitely right. That matt orange looks great. I'm a huge convert to birch ply, it looks great. Has anyone seen the toilet at Lido Cafe?

I recommended using one coat of osmo white oil on birch ply, giving it a light sand, then applying a second coat to give it a beautiful pale look and draw out the grain. You can also get a achieve a similar look just using a lacquer (I forget which) which is what we've done at my office with our birch ply kitchenette / shelving units (pics to follow).

Our kitchen, and the under-construction shelving in the sitting room are all Osmo-oiled ply.

ah yes offsets, seductive, yet deadly ;)

Not a bad idea that.

Cost my ex-girlfriends sister £70k to fix/replace her roof, this was probably 25 years ago.

Did you used to date Princess Margaret?

Enter your text here...

I had to get a new roof when I moved in (cowboy builder did a budget loft conversion and didn't double up the rafters on the velux so a number of them snapped under the weight of the velux and heavy concrete tiles believe it or not) so I went for a full loft conversion at the same time. do it you won't regret it

I think when it comes to roofing, you need to get it done properly. Having read the last few pages here, you can appreciate how important it is to get things done right. And roofs are quite important things!

@Prole. @Dammit I'd give the thumbs up for Osmo oil too; it's lovely isn't it? Smells great too.

Birch ply is incredible. I want to make everything out of it at the moment.

Anyone know where to buy premium birch ply at not too insane prices? Last place I bought it was 80+ quid a sheet.

Cheers all.

I have considered a loft conversion (it's a fairly sizeable loft) but have concerns that it would take too much space from the rest of the flat for whatever access would be needed to get up there. It is something I'll probably look at again if the roof does need redoing, if it's just minor repairs I doubt I'll bother.

On a related note can anyone recommend a roofer in North London.
Cheers

^ Architectural Roofing are good (Chingford I think). Not the cheapest, but they do a quality job.

Has anyone had experience with buying a house with a friend or family member?

Yes. Bought a house with a friend back in 2000.

What do you want to know?

Yes.

My brothers (1 + 2) bought a flat together. Years later I bought out one of my brothers (2) and moved in with my other brother (1). Years after that I sold my half to the brother (1) that I shared with so he had sole ownership.

Me and my sister are considering buying together. Maybe buying a house and then dividing it into two flats.

Are there any negatives that I should know about? Was the mortgage process difficult? When/if you sold what happened, was it a 50/50 split of the equity?

Negatives: Possibility of falling out with family over money. We got away with it, but it can easily happen, even if you think it won't because you get along fabulously.

Wasn't involved in the original mortgage stuff so I've no idea about that. Can't remember how it worked after i'd bought in, I don't think I was even named on the mortgage. I think my eldest brother (who ended up buying me out) just assumed the whole mortgage (he'd already paid off most of his share) and I paid my contributions to it (it wasn't rent as I was on the deeds as co-owner, see next point).

Stamp duty was, annoyingly but not great surprise, liable on the various buyouts.

When it came to sell we worked out equity (based on mortgage balance and payments we had made), got the place valued and then agreed on a price.

I'd recommend you get a deed of trust in place as that details what happens on sale.

We had no problems getting a mortgage, nor were any questions asked about our relationship, but bear in mind this was 15 years ago when borrowing money was easy.

I supplied the deposit, then we paid the mortgage 50/50. On sale, I was paid back the deposit plus the proportional amount it had appreciated, then we split the rest of the proceeds 50/50. All this was detailed in the deed of trust beforehand.

It was good, worked well for both of us. My only regret, and hindsight is a wonderful thing, is that I didn't buy my friend out and hold on to the place.

+1 for avoiding honed kitchen work surfaces. I had a Honed concrete work surface in my old flat. Was a nightmare to maintain. Anything acidic seems to destroy the finished surface almost instantaneously . I ended up cutting up a giant bit of engineered bamboo worktop, and using that on top of the concrete as a a giant chopping board to avoid stains.

I have wood effect formica.

Oh the fucking shame. It burns.