Buying a house (and renting)

Preezy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:I've put an offer in for a house. Can't believe I might be a home owner soon.

Was your offer accepted?

Our 5-year fixed rate ends in a couple of months and managed to shave £100 off our monthly payments on the new deal from our existing lender. That'll do nicely

Yeah although I haven't finished the buying process yet. Hopefully everything will be done some point in March. Got a five year fixed at about 1.5 worried that interested will have spiked in five years though.

Jenuall wrote:Yeah the interest is just depressing when you look at it.

Looking at it on a small level can be depressing but when I look back at how much we've paid of over the number of years since first taking out a mortgage you can see progress which is nice!

I bank with the same place we have our mortgage so it appears on the app. I quite like that they don't fudge the numbers and show me exactly how much per month of what I pay actually comes off the outstanding amount. Less than half

Managed to get a full ask offer on our house and have agreed an offer subject to completion for our next house. Moving to a slightly cheaper area, slightly bigger house, but extending out the kitchen/diner and transforming it into a large, open, entertaining space with roof lantern.

Also going to have a loft conversion with juliet balcony done.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the ombudsman (it can take ages apparently), but got home today to find a statement from the banana split landlords.

They’re claiming the ground rent wasn’t received (it was strawberry floating paid ) and have added £5 or so “interest for ground rent”.

Even more though, they’ve added £1100 as “interest” for the outstanding balance.

Utter corrupt scum mummy strawberry floaters.

I can’t take much more of this gooseberry fool.

Moggy wrote:I’m still waiting to hear back from the ombudsman (it can take ages apparently), but got home today to find a statement from the banana split landlords.

They’re claiming the ground rent wasn’t received (it was strawberry floating paid ) and have added £5 or so “interest for ground rent”.

Even more though, they’ve added £1100 as “interest” for the outstanding balance.

Utter corrupt scum mummy strawberry floaters.

I can’t take much more of this gooseberry fool.

This needs to go to court, i think. But let these banana splits be forced to do it. Defend yourself.

Ring them up, call them an absolute bunch of banana splits. Unleash a tirade of abuse at them - to get them to try and take you to court. Then watch them get laughed out of it, and case dismissed. Defend yourself - it wont even go to court.

pjbetman wrote:

Moggy wrote:I’m still waiting to hear back from the ombudsman (it can take ages apparently), but got home today to find a statement from the banana split landlords.

They’re claiming the ground rent wasn’t received (it was strawberry floating paid ) and have added £5 or so “interest for ground rent”.

Even more though, they’ve added £1100 as “interest” for the outstanding balance.

Utter corrupt scum mummy strawberry floaters.

I can’t take much more of this gooseberry fool.

This needs to go to court, i think. But let these banana splits be forced to do it. Defend yourself.

Ring them up, call them an absolute bunch of banana splits. Unleash a tirade of abuse at them - to get them to try and take you to court. Then watch them get laughed out of it, and case dismissed. Defend yourself - it wont even go to court.

I need to wait for the ombudsman first, that’s what my solicitor advised. Assuming that goes in my favour, I’ll be in a much stronger position.

Moggy wrote:

pjbetman wrote:

Moggy wrote:I’m still waiting to hear back from the ombudsman (it can take ages apparently), but got home today to find a statement from the banana split landlords.

They’re claiming the ground rent wasn’t received (it was strawberry floating paid ) and have added £5 or so “interest for ground rent”.

Even more though, they’ve added £1100 as “interest” for the outstanding balance.

Utter corrupt scum mummy strawberry floaters.

I can’t take much more of this gooseberry fool.

This needs to go to court, i think. But let these banana splits be forced to do it. Defend yourself.

Ring them up, call them an absolute bunch of banana splits. Unleash a tirade of abuse at them - to get them to try and take you to court. Then watch them get laughed out of it, and case dismissed. Defend yourself - it wont even go to court.

I need to wait for the ombudsman first, that’s what my solicitor advised. Assuming that goes in my favour, I’ll be in a much stronger position.

Haha. Yeah dont blame you. I hate these banana splits, and i'm not even invloved!

I wonder if trading standards would be interested?

pjbetman wrote:

Moggy wrote:

pjbetman wrote:

Moggy wrote:I’m still waiting to hear back from the ombudsman (it can take ages apparently), but got home today to find a statement from the banana split landlords.

They’re claiming the ground rent wasn’t received (it was strawberry floating paid ) and have added £5 or so “interest for ground rent”.

Even more though, they’ve added £1100 as “interest” for the outstanding balance.

Utter corrupt scum mummy strawberry floaters.

I can’t take much more of this gooseberry fool.

This needs to go to court, i think. But let these banana splits be forced to do it. Defend yourself.

Ring them up, call them an absolute bunch of banana splits. Unleash a tirade of abuse at them - to get them to try and take you to court. Then watch them get laughed out of it, and case dismissed. Defend yourself - it wont even go to court.

I need to wait for the ombudsman first, that’s what my solicitor advised. Assuming that goes in my favour, I’ll be in a much stronger position.

Haha. Yeah dont blame you. I hate these banana splits, and i'm not even invloved!

I wonder if trading standards would be interested?

I’d love nothing more than to call them up and call them banana splits mind. I’ll wait until I’ve moved (if that ever happens) and then call them to unleash a torrent of abuse.

I dunno about trading standards, will be worth a look if the ombudsman gets me nowhere.

In more home related woes, I have noticed that there is a leak coming from the flue of our gas boiler. I know nothing about boilers, but basically we have the boiler in a cupboard in the bathroom, out of the top of the boiler is a plastic flue tube that goes out through the roof to outside. Drips of water are coming out of a curve in the plastic tube (inside the cupboard).

How serious is that likely to be? I don’t have British Gas homecare or anything like that, so I am guessing I am strawberry floated?

That flue pipe is still dripping but I am too scared to get anybody out to look at it. Somebody recommended Boxt to me, but a quick quote on their suggests a new boiler would be £1800 minimum. Adult life is strawberry floating horrible.

In other news, I emailed my MP this morning and have received a reply from her assistant. She’s going to chase it up with the Property Ombudsman for me. I don’t know if that will help at all, but it might speed things up.

My advice to everyone out there is to never buy a strawberry floating leasehold property. It’s a strawberry floating nightmare.

How much is the flue dripping? Could it just be condensation? Also what is the pressure gauge showing - if the boiler pressure is not right then that might explain excess water?

£1800 seems like a lot for a boiler, we had to put a new one in our old place just before we moved and it was about half of that for the boiler itself. Why the strawberry float couldn't it have just held out for a few weeks longer so it was the new owners problem!? Adult life does indeed suck!

Jenuall wrote:How much is the flue dripping? Could it just be condensation? Also what is the pressure gauge showing - if the boiler pressure is not right then that might explain excess water?

£1800 seems like a lot for a boiler, we had to put a new one in our old place just before we moved and it was about half of that for the boiler itself. Why the strawberry float couldn't it have just held out for a few weeks longer so it was the new owners problem!? Adult life does indeed suck!

The pressure on the boiler has been strawberry floated for a couple of years. It slowly drops in pressure and I then have to top it up every couple of weeks.

The drips are small but regular. I have put a cloth underneath to catch them, but I am thinking I need to get it actually fixed rather than keep ignoring it.

£1800 for a boiler is a lot? I guess I will shop around then and see if I can get it cheaper.

Before I bought my house I was looking at a brand new housing estate being built nearby, the developer had bought a huge plot of land and was building an entire estate. By the time showhomes and the sales office opened they'd already started construction on a few dozen more houses all at the same time.
I went into the sales office on the opening weekend since they were advertising offers and so it was extremely busy. The show homes were pretty decent so I was looking through the stapled paper leaflets with all the plot numbers, house 'models' and prices on, but then I got to the very last page and in tiny text at the bottom of that page only was some text about the houses being Leasehold and that an annual maintenance fee would be due each year and that the fee could increase by "up to 10% every year".
So I got the attention of a passing sales rep and asked "Wait, thr last page says they're all Leasehold?"

It was like a record scratch and the entire sales office went silent for a split second as everyone looked at me, then suddenly everyone is furiously turning to the last page and seeing it, then asking their sales reps "They're Leasehold?", "You never said the houses were leasehold", "So we wont own the land?"
The reps all looked incredibly uncomfortable and I left after that as I'd already decided I wasn't buying leasehold.

After that sales on the development cratered so badly that the developer, balls deep in the cost of several dozens of half finished constructions and a massive plot of land left that nobody else could do anything with, had no choice but to spend more money and outright buy the land in order to sell the houses as Freehold.

Sales picked up after that for a little while until word spread that the houses were all being built without gas mains and instead you needed to purchase/burn wood chips or have all electric, and sales cratered again until the developer had to pay for a gas main to be put in.

Wow, that sounds like a classic case of the developers trying to do things on the cheap to wring as much money out of people as possible and suffering as a result. Idiots!

Moggy wrote:

Jenuall wrote:How much is the flue dripping? Could it just be condensation? Also what is the pressure gauge showing - if the boiler pressure is not right then that might explain excess water?

£1800 seems like a lot for a boiler, we had to put a new one in our old place just before we moved and it was about half of that for the boiler itself. Why the strawberry float couldn't it have just held out for a few weeks longer so it was the new owners problem!? Adult life does indeed suck!

The pressure on the boiler has been strawberry floated for a couple of years. It slowly drops in pressure and I then have to top it up every couple of weeks.

The drips are small but regular. I have put a cloth underneath to catch them, but I am thinking I need to get it actually fixed rather than keep ignoring it.

£1800 for a boiler is a lot? I guess I will shop around then and see if I can get it cheaper.

I mean I'm no expert but I know the guy who did ours so I'm confident he didn't put a gooseberry fool boiler in and it cost about £1000 for the unit.

Jenuall wrote:Wow, that sounds like a classic case of the developers trying to do things on the cheap to wring as much money out of people as possible and suffering as a result. Idiots!

Moggy wrote:

Jenuall wrote:How much is the flue dripping? Could it just be condensation? Also what is the pressure gauge showing - if the boiler pressure is not right then that might explain excess water?

£1800 seems like a lot for a boiler, we had to put a new one in our old place just before we moved and it was about half of that for the boiler itself. Why the strawberry float couldn't it have just held out for a few weeks longer so it was the new owners problem!? Adult life does indeed suck!

The pressure on the boiler has been strawberry floated for a couple of years. It slowly drops in pressure and I then have to top it up every couple of weeks.

The drips are small but regular. I have put a cloth underneath to catch them, but I am thinking I need to get it actually fixed rather than keep ignoring it.

£1800 for a boiler is a lot? I guess I will shop around then and see if I can get it cheaper.

I mean I'm no expert but I know the guy who did ours so I'm confident he didn't put a gooseberry fool boiler in and it cost about £1000 for the unit.

Cheers. I guess that Boxt place are charging £800 for labour then.

I’ll shop around.

We need to put a new boiler into the place we're moving to and were quoted £2500.

West Sussex prices.

Fwiw I paid £1800 for a new boiler 2 years ago. It did involve stripping out the old one in the bathroom and installing new in the garage so some pipework modifications.

My boiler + installation was over 3 grand. Top floor flat with an external flue meant that I had to pay a grand for scaffolding to go up the outside of the building. Was up and down in all of 2 hours

The strawberry floater will probably only last a decade due to London hard water.

£3k. Ouch! And for only a few hours as well!

Clarkman wrote:My boiler + installation was over 3 grand. Top floor flat with an external flue meant that I had to pay a grand for scaffolding to go up the outside of the building. Was up and down in all of 2 hours

The strawberry floater will probably only last a decade due to London hard water.

That’s my worry, if the flue needs replacing then it is going to be massively expensive due to how the piping is set up. The flue comes out of the top of the boiler, curves out at a right angle, before going up into the ceiling. Where it comes out on the roof is nowhere near the boiler, so it’d be a massive pain and involve loads of work to replace.

With all my housing problems, I think it might be easier and cheaper to just get repossessed and go and live on the street.