watchcoll

Going to the lakes for 5 days this summer with my tent for the princely sum of £20 Admittedly that's just for me & my two man tent (each tent is additionally charged). It's probably going to be the cheapest holiday we've ever had, & I can't wait!

No. I had more important things to worry about at that time than what bus drivers do in buses i don't use.

I'm sure a bus driver told me that if the option is to brake suddenly & harshly/emergency stop to come to a stop & potentially hurt people on the bus, or drive throught an amber-turning-to-red light then they drive through - only doing an emergency stop if they would hit something. How many use that as an excuse to amber gamble, i don't know.

It can be a problem when it comes time to sell. The lady i bought my house from had to pay for indemnity insurance as she had no receipts to say the ground rent had been paid while she owned the lease. Despite my solicitor informing Coppen of the sale they have never been in touch with me to either acknowledge the transfer of ownership or request rent. So she won't get her money back for the indemnity until 6 years has passed! I'm not sure what will happen when i come to ask to buy the freehold on my house.

It is money well spent. Trust me, do not try and scrimp on what is probably one of the biggest, most expensive commitments of your life. The survey that JH Rees did added a bit of time to the sale going through & about £300 to the pre sale expenses i had to pay out but it also saved me thousands in the long term. I knocked £5k off my original offer due to the work needed on the house. I also made it clear to the vendor i was prepared to walk away if they didn't wish to accept. Their survey also gave a prediction of the cost to remedy the faults so i had a rough idea of how much i should pay for the work before i called in the builders. Gather all the facts, think everything through & don't let anyone rush you!

I used JH Rees to do a roof and timber survey of the house I bought as the homebuyers report said there was evidence of rot in the floor joists, damp upstairs & the roof was in need of repair. They were prompt and thorough & identified the lounge floor needed completey replacing, there was no damp upstairs at all and the roof could be repaired but replacement was recommended. This helped me negotiate £££ off the price.

I'm in the exact same situation as the OP. Coppen own my freehold but I've never received a bill & never paid any ground rent. The previous owner of the house never did either. She told me that as ours is in a block of 4 the end house pays it for all of us and never collects the money back. I don't know if this is true or not. The ground rent is £1.50 a year so it might well be true! Jeffrey Shaw did the conveyancing on my house purchase and I can highly recommend him. I will be using his services when I am ready to purchase my freehold.

when I was looking to buy two years ago leasehold properties made up a significant proportion of the houses that were available in my chosen location/price/size etc. I had to do a lot of independent research on what leasehold actually meant - to me as prospective leaseholder; some estate agents couldn't tell me the status of a property and/or how long a lease was. Quickest way to lose a viewing! I settled on the premise that a lease of hundreds of years was acceptable. I did turn down a nicer property further up the same road i eventually bought on because the lease remaining was 88 years. Maybe the estate agent got it wrong as the property i bought on the same street has over 850 years left on it, all built around 1890-1910.

How long is your lease? That will make a huge difference to the price of the freehold (not including legal fees). A long lease ie.hundreds of years will be a lower cost. A short lease will be more expensive. Anything less than 80 years is a problem.

That exact same noise riles me too. Also snoring and people i don't know whistling. I have no explaination for that last one - if it's someone i know & like i can tolerate it. If it's a complete stranger (ie at work or in a store) it drives me potty to the extent that i will have to leave the scene of the crime! Or maybe it's just tuneless whistling that drives me potty.

It's not just foreign nationals, I had a relative visit me from London who did the exact same thing - stroll straight out into oncoming traffic. When I asked her if she had a death wish she said that's what you have to do in central London because there were no gaps in the traffic and if you stood and waited no one would stop for you and you'd never get across! I've seen many young people rush across West St without looking, not just exclusively oriental people. I was once working on West St one friday night when there were a mass of blue lights flashing outside. Police had closed the road, tram had come to a stop and the fire brigade were shining torches under it. Police told me that a taxi had pulled into one of the lay-bys and the passenger had exited the rear drivers side door just as a tram was going passed and had ripped the taxi door off - no sign of the (drunk) passenger. Turns out the passenger, after having wrecked the taxi door, had simply just climbed out the other side and wandered off and nobody noticed!

When I had a rather sudden invasion of bluebottles late last summer in the downstairs of my house I bought a can of Raid fly and wasp killer and just followed the instructions on the can. I sprayed it in the morning before work and came home to about a dozen dead flies on the floor and windowsill. Sprayed again before bed, and about half a dozen the next morning. Kept this up for two days and the flies disappeared as quickly as they'd appeared. The one and only time I've ever had a fly problem. I bleached the kitchen waste bin, but other than that - no idea where they came from! My kitchen is always cleaned/no food left out etc The spray seems to keep working throughout the day, so I made sure I kept the downstairs doors closed and was out at work or not using the rooms after I'd sprayed it. It did the job, though.

You must have been one of the lucky ones. I bought my house, gave them my meter readings and they set up a direct debit for £50 a month. That was in June 2013. They collected one payment in August 2013 then nothing until Jan 2014 when they finally started taking the £50 a month. During that time i must have given a dozen readings and no bill ever came. In March 2014 i was still showing as £200 in credit, i tried calling and calling and spent anything upto 45 mins on hold each time. Finally, after about the 6th call, they managed to sort the problem and gave me a bill - £558. I offered to pay the outstanding balance and they promised to keep my DD at £50 as the debt (which was their fault anyway) was cleared. Then next day i got an email saying my DD was going up to £91 a month. I called again, but after 25mins on hold i hung up and went on Uswitch. No way was i giving Scottish Power a £41 interest free loan every month! That's my experience of them, & it seems to be a massive problem they have: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11448920/ScottishPower-becomes-first-of-the-Big-Six-energy-firms-to-be-banned-from-proactive-selling.html

I used to be with Scottish Power, never have i experienced such a shambles! Their billing was non existant & they didn't collect any payments. Then when they finally issued a bill after me hounding them for a week they decided to up my direct debit because i owed them money! I paid the bill and left for EDF. They are brill! I can put as many meter readings in as i like online, i see my new balance straight away, an online bill the following day & they have adjusted my monthly payment twice (from £56 per month last winter to £44 in summer & back up to £51 now). I expect to finish the year in credit by about £50. Once my fixed price deal ends i'll move to another EDF tarrif because, after the Scottish Power debacle, i have really come to value the excellent service!

I'm with EDF. They automatically adjust the direct debit if i'm paying too much or not enough. After the last reading i entered my balance was left in credit by £20 so they seem to have it spot on. I prefer to pay the same amount every month so that by winter i've built up some credit and don't need to worry about the bills in winter.

I've found in my two bed terrace (with ridiculously high ceilings downstairs) that using the gas fire in the lounge seems to be quite expensive. That's in comparison to using the 3kw electric fan heater in the bedroom. I think that even though the unit price of gas is cheaper - the fire guzzles gas so it actually works out at more per hour than the 3kw fan heater which costs 45p an hour to run (one hour will easily heat up the room to tropical temps!). My winter dual fuel bill was about £270 from Dec-Feb, £80 for Nov. Prior to that i didn't use any heating. My electricity part of the bill was lower than the gas, even though my CH is on a timer set to 4 hours a day and thermostat set to 18c. All that said though, my bill still came within my credit balance and is covered by my £51 Direct debit. For the whole year my estimated usage of both fuels is less than £600. So it's not drastically expensive anyway. In summer i had a bill where the standing charges for the gas/elec were actually higher than the usage!

Put a link to the property on here so people can see the house and offer advice. Is the price similar to the same kind of properties in the same area?

I agree, very complicated. Looking for somewhere else to live is probably the simplest & most prudent thing to do, for her own best interests.

Her first port of call then is to check what it says in her tenancy agreement regards notice periods. It all sounds a bit dodgy, to be honest. I believe if he was offering a fully legit dwelling for let then she should have been paying council tax on the "flat" and he'd probably not told his mortgage company either. Certainly, it is not a separate property to the house as the attic "flat" has been sold with the house. Sounds like a very sticky, less than above board, situation.

Has she signed a tenancy agreement for it? And has she been paying council tax on it as a separate dwelling to the accomodation below it?

There is no longer a requirement to display the licence holders name above the door, but there is to display a copy of the premises licence somewhere in the store where the public can view it. Also, if they are properly licensed then they will likely have the red & black "think25" posters (or similar) that you see in pretty much every off & on licensed premise. Although it is not a legal requirement to operate a policy such as "think25" the licensing authority do not usually issue a license unless the licensee agrees to operate an age verification process as part of their licensing conditions. If none of those things are present, then i'd be calling the council. However, there's nothing to say that the original planning consent for the building did not already allow for late opening/licensed trade & the business just chose not to use it until now.

I can highly recommend Corgigasman (Steve). He removed an old system boiler and replaced with a new combi boiler, rejigged the pipework & replaced a radiator. Excellent service throughout & the final bill was actually slightly less than he had quoted for the work.

The above sentence in the OP makes it sound like she is a lodger rather than a tenant. I don't think the same laws apply if that is the case.

The AA doubled my premium at renewel to £200. I just called them up & told them i wouldn't renew as i could get the same thing for less than half the price (£96) of i reapplied as a new customer. They were able to match it and agreed to charge me £96 for the following year too. It must be a bit like car insurance - need to shop around every year to get the best price.

I can highly recommend Steve (Corgigasman on here). He removed a decades old conventional boiler & tank system which was replaced with an Ideal logic+ combi boiler. The service was excellent and the price was very competitive for all the work he did. As for the boiler, i'm very happy with it. Every plumber i got a quote from recommended it, it does the job great & it came with a 7 year warranty. The only niggle i had with it is that it seemed to be a bit noisy when it fires up, but mine is in the kitchen and not encased in a cupboard so i noticed it more. I've got used to it now and hardly notice it anymore.