r/UKHousing

Hi all, hopefully this question is more interesting than most...

If I were to buy a house in a flood risk area, and down the line the government decided it's no longer worth protecting, what are the implications? Would insurance pay out? How much, previous market value?

Our Level 3 survey was carried out a few days ago, and the surveyor told us there were bats in the loft, so he wasn't able to inspect it.

We've read the Bat Conservation Trust website, which suggests that having bats in a house isn't necessarily a problem. However, the thought of living with them under the same roof is still quite daunting.

We understand that additional surveys and licences may be required if the roof or loft ever needs work. We don't have any plans to convert the loft, so we're just hoping the roof doesn't need any major repairs. We're also considering asking the sellers to commission a bat survey before we proceed.

On top of that, we're concerned about proceeding without the loft being inspected. However, we understand the bats may remain until September, so insisting on a loft inspection could significantly delay the purchase.

Has anyone here bought or lived in a house with bats in the loft? We'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any advice you may have.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

​I'm currently buying a house on Vale Street with a mortgage. My conveyancer just flagged that the legal deeds don't show a clear right of way to use Cole Crescent to get to Vale Street.

​To fix this for the mortgage lender, they are proposing:

​A Statutory Declaration from the sellers swearing they’ve used the road for years without issue.

​An Indemnity Policy to provide legal cover if anyone blocks access in the future.

​As a buyer, I have a few quick questions:

​Is a declaration + indemnity policy normally accepted by UK mortgage lenders without fuss?

​Will this cause me major headaches when I try to sell the property in the future?

​Should I insist that the seller pays the one-off premium for the indemnity policy?

Several property transactions has taken place kne the street successfully. In the last 10 years, at least 6-7 property have been bought/sold on Vale Street and green acre.

I dont want to loss a good property over a None-issue.

​Any advice or reassurance from people who have been through this would be amazing. Thanks!

I’m a first time buyer and complete next Friday on a flat. The sellers are moving literally 2 doors down on the same road, and our contract states we complete at 2pm.

They got the estate agent to email me less than 10 days from completion asking if despite completion being at 2pm they could have a few hours to move their stuff out before the flat would be empty.

I’m not actually moving all my stuff in that day (we are renting and have to service our notice period on our current place) but we do want to spend time in the property that day and have tradesman in from the next day onwards to start redecorating.

They haven’t booked removals because they are only moving 2 doors down, so I think their argument is they need to wait until we complete then they will be moving all their stuff into the new place themselves.

How should I approach this? They never raised this via their solicitors prior to exchanging, and they’ve just had their estate agent emailing us and saying things like “this isn’t a matter for solicitors and is very common practice”.

I instinctively don’t love the idea of this as what if a few hours drags on and become “oh actually we’ll be done tomorrow morning”? But equally I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable here and don’t want to make enemies with someone who is soon to basically be our neighbour. Any advice would be helpful!

My wife and I have had our offer accepted on a house, but the process has become stressful largely due to the behaviour of the sellers.

They've said we're slow and should have booked the survey by now. Yet, they cancelled a mortgage valuation that delayed us by nearly 2 weeks (we had to rebook it), took 4 weeks to send an incomplete contract pack out and we've still not had sight of the lease 2 weeks later.

They've marketed the property themselves and are forever in contact via email. They've even contacted our mortgage broker directly by telephone to suggest we need to move more quickly otherwise we'll lose the house. Our mortgage broker pointed out that the delay was from their side because we still haven't seen the lease.

Our Solicitor has repeatedly requested sight of the lease over the last 6 weeks.

The leasehold is a tripartite arrangement (freehold>headlease>underlease) and the headlease affects the property we're buying and next door so this obviously needs to be looked at carefully for onerous restrictive/positive covenants, easements etc. It's not ideal and the sellers never disclosed the nature of the leasehold either.

Had a recent email from the sellers saying we've now located the lease, and it can be bought. Felt like saying "that's your responsibility, just send the lease please."

They've also indicated that they've received a substantially higher offer. I don't why they’ve told us this. Was it supposed to make us panic? I felt the exact opposite. Hell will freeze over before we give them a penny more than what we've offered. I felt like responding with "Thanks for the message. Feel free to explore that substantially higher offer. Good luck."

I'm at a loss as to why they're behaving like this before exchange and I'm at the point where I don't trust the sellers and do not want to communicate with them anymore. My wife is slightly less affected by their behaviour.

Should we pull out? I want to do it immediately. My wife wants us to wait for the lease and then make a decision.

One thing is for certain though. If we pull out, I'm never buying a house again from someone who's marketed it themselves.

My wife & I live in a pretty expensive part of the country, and of modest means, so we're struggling to find a place we like. We really wanted an actual house, freehold, but all the ones we see are either tiny (with bedrooms where you can reach to touch each wall from the middle of the room) or near our absolute max and run-down, leaving us little money to fix the problems (given how expensive kitchens/bathrooms/glazing jobs are these days). We're in our 40s, meaning it's difficult to consider a "starter home" that we expect to move on from at this stage of life (we've both both saved for our entire adult life, working full-time - we had no monetary parental help so essentially started off in our early 20s with £0).

We finally found one earlier this year, but it's a leasehold flat. It's really nice, a good size, in a good location, relatively new (<20yrs), great balcony with a view, etc., etc...

There was a problem earlier in the year where it needed remediation work for Grenfell legislation reasons, and we were worried if we bought it then we might end up somehow getting charged for the work.

We walked away at the time, but the EA got back in touch a few months later and said the freeholder has finalised plans to get all the work done, and will sign an affidavit (or something to that effect) stating that they are liable for that work and will pay for it.

The lease is longish (>100yrs) but obviously it's still a leasehold property. Collective fees are about £250 a month.

I want to ask, as someone pretty new to home-buying, how do people reconcile buying a leasehold?

I'm not asking what one is, or how one works. I get the general idea. But it just seems like every day, I see news where people bought a flat in 2004, and now they're paying £600 a month or something and they've "paid off" their mortgage, but are now paying what would basically be the cost of rent in many places; their flat is nigh-unsellable and it feels like they've fell to a life-long scam.

The first solo place I ever rented in my adult life was £475 a month (inc. bills), and while rents have certainly gone up, I can't imagine how I'd feel if I was in a situation where I'd paid off a property, but was still paying that kind of money in an unsellable flat. It'd feel like I'd worked decades for nothing.

Like okay, the freeholder is going to fix the fire issues, but how do I know they're not gonna raise the fees 10% a year, every year, for the next 10 years, and before you know it I'm paying £480 a month and wondering when it got so expensive?

Yet despite that, freehold properties are really common. Millions of people must be using them across the country. So what gives?

Hey everyone, I've just bought a leasehold flat as a first-time buyer and I've been looking at solicitors. Most of the quotes I've received are around £2,000.

Can anyone recommend a good solicitor, please? I'm based in West Yorkshire.

As per title looking to purchase a house. Looking for level 3 for peace of mind. But not sure what I should be looking for when choosing a surveyor.

Any help appreciated

Thanks

We currently live in a rented one bedroom flat and are buying our first home.

The chain for our house has 6 parties involved.

About 3 weeks ago we were told that everyone in the chain was happy with a moving date on the 13th of July, so we spoke to our landlord and estate agents who were happy to have the 14th as our move out date (which worked out perfectly as the 14th is the date of our rent payment).

We kept chasing up about ensuring that contracts could be signed so that we had a definite move out date and was told that they are going through the final part of the process and are setting up to receive our deposit.

Yesterday (1st of July) we received a call saying that someone in the chain has decided they are going on holiday, and if the whole chain doesn't agree to change the moving date to the 28th of July then he will pull out.

This has put us in an incredibly hard position, as our current place has already got someone lined up to move in when we leave, leaving us in a position where we will have to put our belongings in storage and have nowhere to live for 2 weeks.

I'm not sure what to do from here, or what I'm entitled to do in this situation, so any advice would be greatly appreciated

[Edit - spelling mistake]

Hi all.

Looking at 2 surveyors for level 3 survey for house purchase.

One is offering estimate of costs aswell for extra £150. Do you think this is useful in negotiation.

If I need to ask the seller to reduce price due to some of the finding could they ask for copy of survey.

I'm putting my dad's house up for sale very soon. The problem I have is the next door's yard is absolutely covered in dog excrement. When viewers look through the upstairs window they'll see it all. And maybe put people off buying. How can I ask in a nice way without offending him. He has mental health problems.

Hi everyone. First time poster here. My brother and I are executors of our late mother's estate. We had a buyer for the flat at the end of May, but because it is age restricted he was struggling to secure a mortgage and has since withdrawn (he was buying it for his father in law)

We have two weeks left on the minimum term agreement with the estate agent. They have suggested putting the flat into online auction. The other option my brother has suggested is going to webuyanyhouse.com and getting a quote from them.

We're not after a quick sale as such, but we are concerned about the rising building service charges the longer this goes on, and that we'll be charged council tax from the 1st September.

The flat is currently on the market for £75,000. But I'm just getting the sense that the estate agent isn't really doing all it could to promote it due to the relatively low value (re-reading the agreement they haven't even put up a For Sale sign like they said they would)

Any advice would be appreciated. We are in England

FTB buying a late 70s build in England. We've visited the property twice, once with an electrician friend who was able to spot some issues for us. Other than minor things, the property seems great.

We've only ever heard people say the surveyors they hired were useless and missed expensive issues. So, we're considering skipping this step all together. What's people's experience with this? We've been told by our solicitor that we could get a homescreen or homebuyers report if we'd like, are they any good? Would we be crazy for not getting anything?

Wife wants to move for basically no reason except what seems to be house value=prestige. Current house is really nice, detached large bungalow, brand new everything except the garden needs new patio and fence. New build 600k house would have very basic kitchen/bathrooms. New house would also be less convenient for grandparents and school.

I should also add current house is 3 very large bedrooms and new house would be 5. The total sq foot of both is identical tho, 2400 ish.

We're both early 40s with a 5 year old kid.

How can I stop her moaning on about moving?! Help!