In article , Andrew McKay writes
Dangerous places schools. My old mum ,'gawd rest her soul, was a devout catholic and I was duly sent to a catholic school whose ethos was,
"know thy humble place in the scheme of things, and that's somewhere near the bottom of the heap"
Poxy place, no way on this planet would I inflict such a brainwashing establishment on my children.
Don't blame my mum 'tho she was bought up in Ireland to this doctrine and knew no different....
The main problem was the plumbing, and I'm sure they used plastic pipe and obviously unqualified people to do it. Easy isn't! Just push it in!
I strongly suspected that was the critical measurement myself, yes.
No surprise there, then. Once again, consumer law fails to apply where it actually matters...
It's only as much of a lottery as buying any other house is, but expecting it to be less of a lottery is being over-confident.
From that site:
"I got an electric shock because the circuits were incorrectly labelled on the circuit-breaker board, causing me to turn off the wrong circuit while I attempted to dry out the switches in the kitchen."
I wonder that if that shock had been fatal (guess he was saved by the RCD) if a case of corporate manslaughter would ahve been brought against WilCon?
What made me chuckle is that the author has his own website
But this is just the tip of an iceberg. In my perusal of the web on this issue I have found adverse comments galore relating to other building companies. I have yet to receive ANY positive recommendation! Someone in another thread mentioned that Bryant are the best, then offered some qualification of that.
Can anyone recommend - Morris Homes Ashwood Homes Chestnut Homes David Wilson Homes
?MM
Yes.
"Mike Mitchell" wrote | I would LIKE to buy an old property! I would LOVE to buy an old | property, but everyone I know or knew who did so had tremendous | problems with (a) gazumping
move to Scotland
(b) vendor withdrawing
move to Scotland
(c) chains
move to Scotland
(d) surveys
You normally survey before offering, so you may end up having to survey several properties before having an offer accepted
(e) all the other problems.
As most property is not sold through estate agents that removes one layer of fee-grabbing incompetents from the equation
And property ownership is different, which also affects build quality. The speculative building in England was typically for a 60-year property life on a 100-year lease. In Scotland feus were granted in effect in perpetuity.
| An old house with vacant possession might do the trick, though. | But there aren't many of them around.
Keep an eye on the obituary columns.
Owain
"Andrew McKay" wrote | I failed the 11 plus, and duly went to a secondary modern. I came out | with 4 O levels. | When I was at primary school one of my classmates was very | intelligent, always at the top of the class. He went on to grammar | school. | I met him the year after we left. He came out of grammar school with 2 | O levels. And yet he was far more intelligent than me in every | respect.
I got 2 As, 4Bs and a C at O level and a CSE grade one, and it taught me absolutely nothing of any use. Went to university and dropped out after one year. What paid my wages was being able to use a word processor and that I learned at FE college.
Owain
"Mike Mitchell" wrote | "Owain" wrote: | >In one of the, I think, Grand Design series, the Huf Haus was the only | >one completed on time, budget and spec. | I don't think I'll be able to afford one of those. I'd have a budget | of around £150K. Any other ideas?
Is there a German equivalent of a trailer home? Or an A-frame log cabin?
| (By the way, I've scanned the German | property web sites, and I'd easily be able to afford a new house in | Germany! Getting a bit long in the tooth to move back there, though.)
Ah, but German beer in your old age :-)
Owain
I'd recommend my builder (Stuart Milne Homes), but that's probably of little use to you. I found them to be very good at putting problems right.
I just found them on the web - they're actually called Stewart (!) Milne. I'm just perusing the site now. Thanks.
MM
No - no - no -no !!!!! :-)
Well - move to Scotland, yes - but only buy FIXED-PRICE.....
A friend of mine has been - for 6 months - trying to buy a flat in and around Edinburgh.
The system in Scotland is positively Kafkaesque in its design.
She has looked at flats with "offers over" £79k - this would make a great board game - guess the selling price:
The English system is far from perfect. But given the choice ? The English system - ask the above Scottish family.
-- Phil
When I sold my Edinburgh flat last year one across the road from me sold pretty quickly a few weeks before and as it was an identical design we put ours on the market at the same offers over price (OO
69k, I was happy with around 80K) We had loads of interest but no offers so went back to discuss with the solicitor. It turned out that the one across the road went for 100k (absolutely outrageous IMHO) so it was obvious that prospectous buyers expected mine to go for the same.Made it fixed price 83K and it sold the next day.
'Offer's over' is becoming much less now. 'Fixed price' can be seen in all the estate agents windows
Ophelia Scotland
"Phil" wrote | "Owain" wrote | > move to Scotland | No - no - no -no !!!!! :-) | Well - move to Scotland, yes - but only buy FIXED-PRICE..... | A friend of mine has been - for 6 months - trying to buy a flat in and | around Edinburgh.
The Scottish system works well providing the ratio of buyers to sellers is reasonably well matched. There is simply a shortage of property in Edinburgh.
Owain
A prospective purchaser would go to
What's the difference from England? Most put in an offer too. So you've got to know either what they sell for or what it's worth to you. The only difference is the starting point - on one you go higher - the other usually lower.
Just dont try to buy a valuation using a Visa Delta Debit card -It says you cannot pay in GBP using such a card . First time I have ever heard that one !!!!!! Stuart
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Remove YOURPANTS before E-mailing Me
What type of flat is she looking for? As she's not got one I'm assuming she wants a desirable tenament or lower colony flat rather than a modern flat. FWIW, I've just went through the same process, and it looks like the housing markets cooling a bit. I did do quite a bit of research though, and this is what I'd suggest.
1) Get a solicitor that will provide you with lots of information from the ESPC database. One or two properties are no good. You need to be able to look over the prices for your street and the streets next to it for the last year (this is to give you an idea of the average offers over price and the average selling price). 2) Decide on the areas you want to live, and concentrate on them. View the flats that come up for sale in those areas, note the offers over prices, have a look at the flat to get a good idea what it's like and put in an offer, or find out how much it went for when it sold. Also look at similar flats in the same area that you wouldn't want to live in (for example, too much work needing done to it) in order to give you an idea of the difference between the 'average' offers over price for the area for the condition of the flat. 3) Bear in mind that solicitors generally put a property in at about 10% under what they 'think' it will survey for (for the average seller). If they have a seller that needs to shift a property quickly (e.g. if they've bought another property), or if the seller's not in a hurry, they'll move these prices down or up to either attract more buyers or less (but more expensive) buyers. 4) Generally on the properties I offered on (and did my research on), tenament and colony flats went for 36-37% over the offers over price. I also found that modern flats go for around 20% over the offers over price. 5) The property we bought we offered 64% over the offers over price. The reason for this is we'd looked at 2 others in the same area and had prices for streets in the area and could see that the property should have been in at offers over 20K more than it was, and it was on;y in at that price as the owners needed to sell quickly (indeed was concluded 5 days after going on the market). Indeed this was bourne out by the survey which valued the property at 4% under what we'd paid for it. Knowing what that flat would go for in that area set our bid, not the offers over price. 6) Don't get a survey done before putting in an offer. There's nothing worse than valuing or surveying a property and putting in an offer only to miss out on it, as it's money for nothing. When you've missed out on 2 or 3 you really start to resent it. Besides, on most properties you'd probably feel better getting a homebuyers or structural done before parting with your cash. Offer subject to satisfactory survey. Our solicitor was adamant that no survey was necessary prior to winning the bidding war.And lastly, good luck!
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