posted
I think that's the plot of Hancock, isn't it? As long as Will Smith and Charlize Theron are apart, neither of them can be killed.
Anyway, no, it's nothing serious. It's one of those stupid skin things where it's almost certainly nothing, just be on the safe side blah blah blah.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Well. I got a call from our mortgage people to say that they couldn't approve the mortgage at the moment as we hadn't given them three full consecutive months of bank statements which seemed strange as I took four full consecutive months of statements into them that they scanned in.
Trying to find out what was going wrong he was saying "we've got 1st March to 15th March, 1st April to 15th April, 1st May to 15th May".
Oh. It appears that the person who scanned the statements didn't realise that statements are printed on two sides and so only scanned one side of each so now we have to go back in and probably wait another week Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
I was wondering how your house purchase was going. I don't think it counts as a purchase unless you have at least one eye-rolling, bureaucratic fuck-up.
We had a major setback when our lender suddenly decided they wouldn't lend us the money on the grounds that the property had two kitchens, and therefore a part of it could be sub-let - causing a frantic search for someone that would lend money on a property with two kitchens. Sorted it in the end with another lender, and we got a letter from Lender1 refunding the valuation survey thing, and essentially stating "We're really sorry about the fuck up - the guy who told you you couldn't have the money is a fucking cretin", which is the best possible result in these kinds of situations.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Fortunately it's all sorted as Kate faxed the documents across and phoned them up and they said they'd look at them next week and she told them that this was their fault and no, they would look at it right now, and they did and it's all approved. Hoorah.
Will wire money to the solicitors today and hopefully exchange next week!
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
One of the kitchens is total bullshit, though. It's going to be torn out. The house has been student accomodation for yonks, so it needs a fair amount of work.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Our one is ex-council and I don't think it's been updated in the last 20 years so it's got artex on lots of walls and ceilings, horrible deep red carpet, wooden panels on walls upstairs and some horrible mirrored wardrobe in the master bedroom, so we're going to have to do a lot of work to get it nice, but it's liveable straight away.
That said, we're going to pay a plasterer to come in and plaster over all the artex before we move in and possibly remove the wooden panellings and plaster that so that we have nice smooth surfaces everywhere that can be covered in crayon in the next few years.
Although, just found out that the solicitors still haven't found out whether they got planning permission for the extension they built 10 years ago so need to wait on that before completion.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Cherry In Hove: Our one is ex-council and I don't think it's been updated in the last 20 years so it's got artex on lots of walls and ceilings, horrible deep red carpet, wooden panels on walls upstairs and some horrible mirrored wardrobe in the master bedroom, so we're going to have to do a lot of work to get it nice, but it's liveable straight away.
Yay! We should have a photo contest to see who's moving into the house with the most interior decorating mis-steps. We've got a load of artex to get rid of too, I think. Definitely some bad carpets, and if I recall correctly the downstairs has got that floorboard effect linoleum stuff over actual floorboards, which seems a bit pointless. The downstairs toilet looks a bit toxic and there's loads of weird stuff throughout the house, like doorframes that have been painted blue and things like that. And, of course, being a student house every room has a different but equally upsetting smell. But it's all stuff to work on. Hopefully after a couple of weeks living there all the rooms will have a single, uniform smell, at the very least.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Exciting stuff! Have you got a date for moving or completion?
I'm going to take lots of photos when we move in and hopefully within a few months have photos of the rooms looking nicer.
Then a bit down the line we're going to knock down the wall between the kitchen/dining room and put an island in, build a conservatory on the back of the dining room and that should be nice.
Also, it's got a really nice sized garden but they couldn't be bothered to mow lawns or anything like that so they just put paving slabs over the entire thing, so there is a lot of potential there.
There are also two raised carp ponds and I suspect we'll use one as a raised bed for something and get rid of the other one as I don't have much interest in having a carp pond.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
My cousin had the most amazing bit of luck recently. He was doing some work on a big house (he's a plumber) and noticed another house in the grounds. Making small talk with the owner, he asked about the other house and the guy said that he and his wife were hoping to sell it quite quickly as she was dying, and with even less time to live than Thorn. So they wanted to sell it quick to avoid complications with all that legal wotnot when you die.
So, my cousin takes a look at the place and it's fantastic. Needs a bit of work and that, but total bargain.
Only problem is that he has to sell his own house, PDQ. So he goes to the estate agent and arranges for them to view, then goes home and just outside his house a woman asks him if he happens to know of any property for sale in the area.
He shows her round and she makes an offer of the asking price. Sweet as. Just like that. Just an amazing string of luck. Bargain property to buy, and asking price on his own place with no agents' fees or anything.
Unfortunately, the old lady died last week before they could complete the deal. It might still go ahead, but now my cousin is like the rest of us, living on fear and nerves while everything collapses around him. Still, at least he had a couple of days when things looked quite hopeful for a bit. That must be a great consolation.
Posts: 8467
| IP: Logged
posted
Well, it's a ridiculously long story, so I'll give you the short version.
Basically before she met me, Reema lived with her ex in a flat which was on a 60% shared ownership. When Reema and pete broke up, she moved out but he stayed there. The idea originally was that she would be taken off the mortgage and that he would stay on it by himself. However the mortgage provider said that his earnings weren't sufficient to take on the mortgage by himself. His parents offered to go in as guarantors, but that was refused by the housing association as they didn't qualify for social housing on their shared ownership scheme.
It all got a bit nasty as Reema just wanted the place to go up for sale, while he refused to leave. In the meantime, pete got a lodget in with him and between them they covered the mortgage payments. And that is how it has stayed for the best part of a year, with Reema being named on the mortgage, but not living there and not actually paying anything towards it. It would have been a good situation for her were it not for the fact that communications between them were very bitter, and sometimes really petty.
A few months ago she got legal advice and found that legally she could force a sale on the flat. Because of the slump in house prices, the flat was in vey slight negative equity, but only by a couple of thousand. The housing association initially sought to put a person on their waiting list forward to buy the place, and when that fell through the flat was put onto the market through an estate agents. There was a little bit of interest but nothing concrete.
Then we found out that pete and his current partner were expecting a baby, and that he intended to move in with his parter and her daughter, so that they could be together when the baby was born. The flat was too small for the four of them to live in. He told Reema that in lieu of a better solution, he intended to stop paying the mortgage at the end of the month, in order that the flat was repossessed and he would simply be free of it.
Obviously this wasn't the best of news for Reema as she'd be equally implicated in being blacklisted for mortgages and credit when the place was repossessed.
So if you hadn't already guessed where this was going, it became apparent that the only real solution which seemed to satisfy all parties was if Reema and I took ownership of the flat and moved into it. Reema was naturally a little reluctant as she wasn't happy when she lived there with pete, and the place would obviously be filled with memories of how things were when she was with him. But we decided that if we threw some paint at the walls, ripped up the knackered carpet, used the second bedroom, etc, that we could make the place into our own home.
So before we went on holiday we met with the mortgage provider and looked at what the options would be. They ran a credit check and told us what our combined borrowing power would be. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I heard how much they'd be prepared to lend us. The upshot being that we easily met the requirements to take on the existing mortgage between us. We then spoke to the housing association and told them our situation and they confirmed that the two of us would be fine for their criteria and would be able to live there.
The whole plan was neraly torn asunder though, when we checked to see if the cats would be able to come with us. The housing association which owns the flats has a 'no pets' policy and when we emailed them enquiring about it, we were given a flat "No" and told that absolutely no pets were allowed. It was a massive setback as we really weren't prepared to rehome our cats. I know the logical decision is to get rid of the cats but they've become like part of our little family, and as a pair of rescue cats we feel responsible for them. And more than that, we're really fond of them.
Reema sent a desperate plea to the housing association basically explaining the situation with regards to pete intending to default on the mortgage and that without us being allowed to bring our cats, the flat would end up being repossessed. I didn't hold out a lot of hope because they have no real obligation to help people who want to be sentimental and potentially put a couple of small animals above their own financial stability. But someone at the housing association must be a cat lover like us, because a couple of days ago we received a reply saying that they were going to send us a letter of confirmation, effectively giving us special dispensation to keep cats in our flat so long as they didn't cause a nuisance to any of the other occupants. When I saw the email I wanted to pull my shirt over my head and run around the office like I'd scored in a world cup final.
So that's where we are now. We've sent Pete a message informing him that we intend to take over the mortgage from him, and he's said he's happy just to walk away from it and even leave a lot of the furniture behind. From our conversations with the mortgage provider, it seems that him coming off the mortgage and me going on is merely an administrative formality. It needs to be signed off by a solicitor, but effectively I just get named onto this existing mortgage.
Six months ago I couldn't see a possible way for me to realistically get onto the property ladder. I have debt, which I'm sure I've mentioned on here enough times for people to know that I'm unlikely to be able to put together anything resembling a deposit. Now, I'm going onto a mortgage on a property which is guaranteed to increase in value massively, at almost exactly the value of the flat as it sits now anyway. It's a bigger place than we are renting now, and the combined rent and mortgage payments are almost the same as our current rent payments. It's maybe not as nice an area, and it's certainly a lot further away from work, but I think it's going to be a great little flat once we've redecorated and put our mark on it.
posted
Reema's away for the weekend but once she's back we'll sort out the paperwork. There's stuff to be signed by all parties, then we need to agree some kind of timescale with pete and with our current landlords. We can't afford any crossover where we're having to pay for the flat and pay rent on our current place at the same time so it's going to be a military operation. We think pete will be eager to get it sorted as soon as possible so is unlikely to be stubborn about sharing the solicitors' fees.
Ultimately I'd hope we'll be moved in within 6 weeks or so. Hopefully sooner.
I'll definitely miss where I am now. Lot of really good memories here.
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
posted
Good luck getting it all sorted. I'm sure you've thought of all this, and that your solicitor will bring it up but make sure you get your name on the deeds to the house. You don't want to be responsible for the mortgage while this other bozo is named as co-owner of the house.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Things all looking good from our end. Transferred £11,400 to solicitors on Friday. Well, I think it was to the solicitors, I got an e-mail saying "transfer £11,400 to this account number and sort code" so I did it because I'm smart.
Work have managed to massively overpay me this month having underpaid me for the past 3 months which is nice, but I'm sure they're going to want it back at some stage but my boss phoned the people in payroll and they said it was definitely right even though it clearly isn't.
I'm trying to get her to not pursue the matter any further but I think she feels that she can't just let me have a bonus 2k.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
Yeah, that's where the solicitor gets involved. The financial stuff is all being done by the Halifax. We were well advised about the procedure when we went to see the mortgage adviser, but we're going to look at all the documentation tonight and then work out a checklist of stuff that needs to be done to sort all of this out.
Then comes the mammoth task of getting all our stuff into the new place. Not going to be easy when all we have is an MX-5 and a VW Lupo...
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
posted
Congratulations Ringo! That all sounds really cool.
Cherry, have you guys exchanged then? When do you complete?
Posts: 3338
| IP: Logged
posted
We haven't exchanged yet, they just wanted 5% of the cost of the house for some reason. I don't know. I'm not really involved as Kate is on maternity leave so has more time to deal with this, so when she says "transfer £11,400 to this random account number" I just do it.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
Now that you 've found your paradise, This is your kingdom to command. You can go outside and polish your car, Or sit by the fire in your Shangrila...
posted
Surely the problem with the people described in Shangrila isn't so much that they've bought houses, it's that they have no inner life, and no aspirations beyond that.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic