Dave80

Thanks for the information I just wondered how a Chartered Surveyor would be able to get a response from Coppen when they don’t reply to a notice of claim. I appreciate legal proceedings may be high cost but surely there is some way to take Coppen to court in attempt to reclaim these costs. The leasehold advisory service have advised that the landlord should not introduce unnecessary costs into the process and they clearly are.

What would happen in a scenario where a notice of claim has been issued to Coppen Estates and 2 months has passed without response from them, a subsequent reminder letter was issued including the original notice of claim and again no response from Coppen Estates after 2 months, both were sent recorded delivery and so there is no doubt about them being received. It has been 4 months since the notice of claim was issued, I have tried to phone them many times and it is either engaged or no one answers. Our solicitor is due to issue another reminder but surely it can’t go on like this until they decide to respond. Has anyone had this scenario with Coppen before when issuing a notice of claim?

This is a great thread, already gained some knowledge but looking for a bit more advice, as we are looking to buy the freehold to our house, which is currently held by Coppen Estates. We have a disabled son and want to ensure that should anything happen to us in the future, we have things in place to make it easier for him to sell the house to pay for any care needed when we can not be there for him. We have owned the house and lease for 4 years now and pay an annual ground rent of £35, the lease was originally for 99 years and we now have 66 years left. Buying the freehold would obviously make any selling easier in the future, and mean he doesn't have to arrange for the lease to be extended, but I am concerned that the cost of buying the freehold may be out of our reach. From what I can gather on the Internet the magic number is 80 years anything less than this left of the lease and the costs increase considerably, just wondering if anyone could give me an idea of the cost of buying the freehold with us only having 66 years left, and the likely legal fees, I'm aware I have to pay the freeholders 'reasonable' valuation and legal fees too...any help would be appreciated...

Go with the 3Gs the otherhalf has one no problems whatsoever and she was advised by her network to go with 3Gs and not Iphone 4

Thanks for the advice, I will complete the software re-install tonight then. Can anyone recommend any good free anti-virus as I did have the AVG free version which did to be fair pick up the virus but on immediately notifying me of the virus the computer shut down.

I am told that a portion of the hard drive is not affected by reformatting so if this is the case could it be the virus is still contained somewhere on it, or even separate to the hard drive in the memory for instance?

I was recently hit by a virus Trojan Sheur 3, which was a real headache to remove as it was difficult to boot just in safe mode, but followed some instructions on a website and managed to get the laptop up and running again, minus all my software!! Before I start installing software again I just wondered if it is wise to replace the harddrive, basically I have been told that you can never fully remove a virus and it will always lurk somewhere in the background and you can only be sure if you replace the harddrive..Does anyone know if this is the case? If so could it be that the virus is contained anywhere else on the laptop, in the memory for instance??