r/FirstTimeBuyersUK

FTB couple in the process of buying a 2 bed 2 bath garden flat - £500k close to completion. (No service charge or ground rent) in Zone 3 London.

But surveys came back with:

-Moderate to high risk of surface water flooding and F rating - High risk in 5 and 30 years from now.
-High risk in natural ground movement and substitence.
-Missing building regulations paperwork from extension

We really love this flat but concerned for future resaleability, re mortgageability and insurance costs. We basically don’t want to inherit such issues and prefer piece of mind. Insurance doesn’t cover both flooding and substitence. Are we over-reacting wanting to pull out?

Hi everyone, currently in the process of buying a 2 bed in London and was wondering if this is too much of a stretch. The interest rates now are high obviously.

My thinking is that if things get more stressful I can always rent room 2.

No kids, no loans, no car. No other debts/expenses beyond normal bills and service charge (1700 a year).

I had an offer accepted on a property recently in England. My mortgage lender valued it at 5% over the agreed purchase price. Does this affect anything? Do I need to tell anyone? Will the seller find out?

I’ve been ‘looking’ and interested in buying for a year or two but the only thing is the area I’m in doesn’t seem to get much movement with properties only coming up once in a few months, and then most are over my price guesstimate.

But for a few months in a row there has been properties coming up just at my budget, I’ve a decent deposit started and for the right price my monthly payments could be cheaper than some peoples rent. (Based on calculators etc, I know I’d need to speak to a mortgage advisor).

Only thing is I’ve not started the whole process due to the fact it’s hard to get properties. Then once one comes up, I’ve nothing to go on. It’s sort of a catch 22 since I only want to live in a certain radius from where I grew up and with the scarcity of houses then ones in my price range too, I’m not taking it seriously. It could be 3-4 months wait if one comes up, but inbetween then I wouldn’t be looking outside the radius so regret not having things started and act on it.

A house has came up at £115k and it’s nothing special but could be a start of something, moving out on my own and away from my parents (in a nice way, I’d still be relatively close proximity to them still).

Anyone relate?

We’re buying a house in England and are now right at the end of the conveyancing process.

Our survey is complete and satisfactory, searches are back, we’ve reviewed the final report, signed all the documents electronically, and our deposit/funds are ready to be sent to our solicitor on Monday.

At the moment, our solicitor is doing the final review and there are only one or two small outstanding enquiries with the seller’s solicitor. They’re not relating to any known physical defect with the property.

One is about an old alteration to a window opening — it looks like a larger window was reduced in size some years ago. Our surveyor inspected it and found no associated defects, but our solicitor is asking whether the seller has any historic paperwork/approval for the alteration. It may simply be that no records exist because it was done a long time ago.

The seller has now asked for completion no later than 16 October, and our solicitor has said they would need roughly a week between exchange and completion for the mortgage funds, so ideally we need to exchange by Friday 9 October.

For anyone who has been in a similar position:
If the final enquiry reply comes back on Monday/Tuesday and is satisfactory, is exchange by Friday reasonably realistic?

If there is simply no historic paperwork for an old window alteration, is this usually something that can be closed fairly quickly, for example by the solicitor accepting the position or using indemnity insurance if appropriate?

How quickly did your solicitor move from “final outstanding enquiries” to actually exchanging once everything was basically ready? Anything else we can do in advance to make it faster?

We know nothing is guaranteed until exchange — just trying to get a sense of whether this sounds like a realistic final-week timeline. Thanks!

We are first-time buyers and are currently considering pulling out of a property purchase.

Our Level 3 survey flagged issues with the windows, roof and various other things. I know surveys will almost always find something, so initially we weren’t overly concerned.

However, we then received the LPE1 pack and there are Section 20 documents discussing works to the windows and roof of the block that the ground-floor maisonette we are buying forms part of.

There is no sinking/reserve fund for the property, just the buildings insurance. Our solicitor has explained that if major works go ahead, we could potentially be asked to pay our share as a lump sum, or possibly through instalments over a relatively short period.

The freeholder/management company is Abri, so I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who has experience with them and how they deal with major works/Section 20 charges.

The problem for us is that we are already close to the top of our house-buying budget. We would have a cash buffer remaining after completion, but not enough that we’d be comfortable suddenly receiving a large bill for windows, roofing or other major works.

We really like the property and it ticks most of our boxes. Freehold houses where we live are considerably more expensive, which is why this maisonette worked financially for us.

I’ve emailed our solicitor explaining that we are considering withdrawing because we can’t properly assess the financial risk without knowing what these works are likely to cost, but communication has been quite slow.

Has anyone bought a leasehold property in a similar situation? Would the combination of proposed Section 20 works and no sinking fund be enough to make you walk away, or is there anything else we should be asking for before making the decision?

Very early stages of looking into buying my first property and would really appreciate some advice/recommendations!

I’m 33F, currently earning £65k and have around £40k saved. I’m looking at properties around the £350k mark.

I currently live in East London and absolutely love the social aspect, diversity and the convenience of being so well connected to central London.

However, realistically, I’m finding it difficult to afford the type of property I’d ideally want in the areas I currently live around.

I’m therefore looking at expanding my search and would love to hear people’s recommendations.

Ideally, I’d like:
Around £350k budget
Walking distance to a station, ideally under 5 minutes
Good and relatively quick transport links into central London
Preferably Zone 2 or 3
A diverse community
Clean, safe and generally a nice area to live
Good amenities, restaurants, shops etc.
Somewhere that feels like a good place to settle long-term

I’ve started looking around Romford, but I’m open to other areas and would love to hear from people who actually live in or know these places.

Where would you recommend I look, and are there any areas you think I should avoid.

I’ve had an offer on a house accepted and over the past few days have been doubting whether if it’s just me or if it’s actually narrow, the room size in question 5.33x3.47 ?

I’m just going through my current outgoings (relatively small due to living with parents), but I’ve been able to save an ok amount and wanted some feedback for my potential new outgoings if I was to buy a cheapish house (110-135k).

I’ve done this all on excel but just went through the averages for the likes of house maintenance (£) (95), utilities (220), internet (40), insurance (20), rates (50), and stuff like budgeting for car maintenance (84 based on yearly spend divided by 12) too*. This includes saving for potential expenses rather than just direct debits which would obviously be fixed. All per month.

So I earn roughly 2000 after tax per month and I’ve got estimated total outgoings at 900 plus a hopeful mortgage repayment of 500+/-(100). Based on deposit, house price LTV and 40 max years repayment. (Haven’t spoken to a financial advisor yet so no DIP but wanted to get my head around it before hand).

Current (real) outgoings are 400 and new (forecast) outgoings to include * as above = 513 based on uk averages. Total 913 + 500-600 mortgage payments 1400-1500 rough total.

Obviously expect my current outgoings to increase since I’ll be buying everything myself including cleaning supplies, food staples which my parents currently pay for, however I do contribute 300 towards that anyway.

Leaving me with 600 max after. Just wondering if I need to expect the worst instead of averages. I’m a single applicant, no dependents and aiming for 10-15% deposit + potential fees of 3k for solicitors/surveys (Can’t find a good figure for this). Which is half my savings so have the same amount for furniture, appliances, surprise repairs if the report has them. Don’t want a fixer upper so only doing essential repairs and if any structural issues I’d not go ahead, unless the cost could be covered in mortgage.

Abit of a ramble but would appreciate some advice. Thanks.