Structural engineer's final report arrives, negotiation ensues...

Well the final report has arrived, and the numbers are worse than I feared yesterday, the engineer failed to mention that he was quoting guestimates without tax! So the final figure looks to be nearer £12-12.5K when including contingency funds and tax.

So I got in touch with Rapport, and let him know the details, well not the details, the bottom line. I need to know the vendor is going to foot that bill, by reducing the cost of the property accordingly.

This is before I find out how much is it going to cost to replace the windows and do the other required jobs.

£12.5K + 3K for windows (guess) + 3K for the en-suite shower room (guess), rounded up we are looking at 20(ish)K when we take into account the other smaller odds and ends!

The point is though, that I have made a commitment to the property, the vendor would be a fool not to take the deal on offer, the market is falling and any other person to put an offer in will have to pay a couple of K to pay for the same reports I have paid for, then their offer will be reduced accordingly.

The guy dealing with this property at the vendor is on holiday now, so I have agreed to think about it and we'll continue in the new year now.

Rapport also mentioned that he had been talking to my solicitor, and she is right on target, ready to exchange in the fifth if we agree a price in the fourth of Jan!

I could be in there by my birthday in Feb, COOL!

Structural Engineer

Well the structural engineer dropped by the house today, and called me later to give me a quick verbal précis of the final report.

Long story short, we are looking at £6-8000 to fix the problem, and the job should be done over the next two years, and is going to take about 3 weeks to complete. Assuming we need to factor in 20% as a contingency fund for the job, we are talking upto 10K!

However, he has most certainly indicated that the house is mortgageable, so that is cool, no further problems getting the mortgage sorted, all the other stuff in the original home buyer's survey was non-"deal breaker" stuff.

On the upside, half the bill should be footed by the house that shares the wall (it does lean over their roof after all!), and of the remaining half, some will be attributable to the other leaseholder. (Did I mention this the other day?) According to the engineer, there is a law that governs this kind of stuff, there is in fact a 1984 Parapet Wall Act!

I'll be getting a typed up copy of the report though the post over the next few days and an electronic copy in my e-mail inbox tomorrow. I'm looking forward to this tomorrow when I get to see the details.

I'm too anal for my own good, I always need the hard facts! :)

Until tomorrow then...

Oh good grief...

Today I was contacted by Rapport (the estate agent), it seems that the vendor is not interested in paying for the Structural Survey.

Normally one of the surveys takes about a day and costs approximately £1000 + VAT. So obviously I'm more than a little upset at the intractable "up on high" nature that the vendor seems to be taking in these negotiations.

This is the third time that they have carried on in this dictatorial fashion, and I have to say it is starting to wear a little thin.

As luck would have it, I have come to an arrangement with a structural engineer, that will cost me far less than £1000 + VAT, and the survey is going to be done on Tuesday. (I think the engineer wants some beer money for the Christmas drinking season.)

This of course means that I have no longer got the leeway of a couple of weeks to sort out the whole job thing once more... sheesh, on, off, on, off, this is getting tiresome!

Anyway I have a job to go to on Monday morning, hopefully an interview to attend on Tuesday morning. I have been thinking about it, and most contracts have a seven day immediate notice period if either party is not happy. If I apply some pressure to the guys I interview with on Tuesday, hopefully I can invoke the seven day clause on the first job.

I've run out of fingers to cross, my luck and karma are both used up, I'm not crossing fingers any more, I'm just going with the flow.

However, when the vendor asks to see the structural engineer's report, rest assured, I'll be charging them £500 + VAT. :D Frankly they can kiss my arse if they think they are getting to see that for free!

Survey arrives, more job news...

The survey has arrived, and it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. (Kinda phew!)

There is no subsidence or settlement, what there is is a severely deviated parapet wall.

"WTF is that?", I hear your tortured screams. Buildings in London have to have brick walls that extend above the level of the roof, these are used to separate buildings, the law that requires this dates back to just after the Great Fire of London. (Back in the time, when London houses were made of wood, came with thatched straw roofs covered in pitch, when each house stood touching the next, and I think all children were issued with flint and steel as a toy at the age they learned to walk. That last bit may or may not have been a lie.)

It seems that the parapet wall to the right of the property (as seen form the front) has moved rather extremely and is starting to look like it is in a bad way, The whole street seems to have this problem, but it does look particularly pronounced on this property. Long story short, an engineers report is required to determine the extent of the work that needs to be done.

What else did the report turn up? The list is extensive...

I need to replace the window frames in some rooms, the electrics, gas, plumbing, and heating need to be checked, some repointing needs to be done, a pipe for the waste on the outside of the building needs to reattached, the en-suite shower room needs to have the floor fixed, the missing door in the shower needs to be replaced and the front door needs to be looked at. (That's the list off the top of my head, and really just counts as "For starters"...)

The important bit is getting the structural engineer's report done as that is a deal breaker, without that, the mortgage lender won't touch the deal with a barge pole.

Once that is done, a quote needs to be made to fix the parapet wall, an investigation needs to be made under the roof near the parapet wall to make sure none of the woodwork has rotted as a result of the damp. Also a quote needs to be done for the window replacement and for the repair of the water damage to the en-suite shower room.

Once I have all those quotes in, then I can ask for that to be knocked of the cost of the property, plus another £5-10K or so as a contingency.

I also need to investigate whether the other leaseholder in the property will be responsible for some of the costs of the upkeep of the roof beams that may have rotted and the cost of the parapet wall repair (in the same way that I would expect the upper maisonette to be responsible for some of the costs of any work done to the foundations, it is after all one house converted into two separate dwellings, but no roof means no two dwellings the same as no foundations does).

The survey will not be completed until the new year now, so I can start catching up with all the things that need to be done on the periphery such as compiling lists of people to inform of the move such as banks, insurers, reregistering my car's address, getting my driving license and passport updated and so on...

I need to get quotes on the cost of movers.

I need to plan on what furniture is going where.

I need to...

I need to...

I can see you have guessed there is a lot to do!

The job thing has gone pretty much exponential in complexity. I'm taking the job starting Monday, as a favour to the client really to help them out. The agency should have made them aware that I will be taking the first job that comes up that pays more (whether the agency has informed the client of this or not, is not a question I'd like to answer).

So I have an income, but to complicate things, I have an interview with another investment bank and they are looking to pay at least £100/day more than this job, and its close to home, and its a new area of investment banking that I'd really like to get into. But apart from that it really has nothing going for it as jobs go. :)

Why on Earth, I have to take the job than get informed of the interview within the hour I have no idea, but I guess Sods Law prevailed in the end, eh dear reader? A curse on the fickleness of the universe. :)

Fending off a job!

Today I have spent most of the day fending off the job that is on offer, in an attempt to get more money for myself. This way I can make ends meet and lay away a lump sum just in case I'm not working for any length of time.

I have never known an agent make such an effort to close a deal. The options he listed were endless, here are the highlights:

1. Work for the client on condition you get more money after a couple of months, when they have managed to have their board meeting and agree more funding. Otherwise walk at the two month point.
2. Agent speaks to the sales director and they drop their margin in order to sell me in as a loss leader.
3. Client agrees to pay me by the hour and, allows me at least an extra half hour a day paid overtime, maybe even an hour.

The agent also had a specialist tax guy contact me to see if I could be any more tax efficient in order to raise my bottom line. I had indicated that at the very least I needed £5000 net per calendar month just to make ends meet.

Anyway, back to the maisonette...

I dropped by there to measure up with my friend J, she's into interior design, so that's looking good, she was full of ideas of colour schemes and furniture layouts, and suggested that the fitted office be moved from the room it is in now, to the guest bedroom, so that the impersonal office leads the way to the terrace, rather than though a private bedroom space. A very good idea, although it does mean that the guest bedroom will be smaller.

J an I then went to John Lewis' and we found loads of really good stuff. I have started formulating a list of stuff to buy for the new home.

I also had the idea to put a huge bookcase right from the start of the stairs though up to the top of the building, so I'd have plenty of space for all my books. What a cool idea!

Still no signs of the survey as yet, hopefully tomorrow. The mortgage broker, solicitor and estate agency are all talking to each other, which is cool, so the solicitor is awaiting the survey when it has been delivered to me, so she knows what to check up on, as pointed out by the surveyor.

So in essence there can be no progress until the surveyor's report arrives. But what is certain, is that the surveyor's report will indicate that a structural engineer's report is required, and until that report is provided, the mortgage lender will not give me the mortgage to buy the property with.

Fingers crossed it arrives tomorrow.

Irony: A job!

I've got the job. Ha ha.

Now that I don't desperately need a job, the very next day I get one. Problem is, that they are paying way lower than my usual daily rate, which I would have taken no problems yesterday, when I needed the job. Now I don't need a job until end of January as the whole 30 Days thing is off, getting a job at the end of Jan will be no problem at all.

If I take this job at the rate offered, I'll have consumed all my liquid savings to purchase the house, but I won't be earning enough to put a nest egg away. That means that when I come to the end of this contract, I'm going to be in dire straights (not the band), and I'll have to get another position immediately or risk reposession of the property.

I have prevaricated most of the day, in the hopes of getting a better rate of pay, we shall see if it pays off.

Still no sign of the surveyor's report, hopefully it will arrive in the post tomorrow.

Freehold and movement?

Well I got a heads-up from Money-Man (an estate agent) today about the initial findings from the surveyor.

It seems there has been movement... I think this may be a nice way of saying a little subsidence. Obviously when house buying, the word subsidence is the equivalent of a swear word, and likely to scare a buyer away, so Money-Man was careful with the spin. Although this could be settlement over a long period rather than subsidence, it still needs the same remedies, but the longer term prognosis is much better.

The movement is "the maximum permissible" and responsible for the water damage to the living room. The surveyor was unsure whether the problem had been fixed (confusingly, I'd of thought it would have been obvious, but then I'm no surveyor I guess). So the vendor needs to determine if the problem has been recently fixed by the previous owner.

To fix this kind of problem, essentially the building can be secured from the inside, but in extreme cases it requires underpinning, which involves digging down to the foundations (and hence is extremely expensive). Underpinning is another house selling swear word, and it also means you have terrible trouble with insurance after the work is done.

So first I need to find out what needs to be done, and how much it is going to cost to fix. This needs a structural engineer's report.

Then I need to decide, whether I want the vendor to fix the problem before purchase, or whether they drop the price (plus another £10K, just in case the costs overrun) and I fix the problem.

On the upside the surveyor indicated that the property was definitely worth the asking price. So that's good.

Anyway the progress is... Money-Man will be approaching the vendor to sort out an engineers report. They will be paying for the report, although usually the cost is split, I'm not up for that, it's already cost me £675 to get this far with the survey, time for them to contribute I feel!

On the job front, a further technical phone interview today, went well, and I have been put in for another couple of positions. But still no definite job.

Although I'm now guessing, that with the engineer's report required and further negotiations based upon the outcome of the report, we may well be into next year anyway. From mid next week, I'm away until the new year, so bugger all is going to get done then obviously. Which is all fine by me, the longer I have to get a job, the better!

Finally, I made the mistake of mentioning to Money-Man that my solicitor seems to think that I'm buying the freehold and a leasehold, he was surprised and said "bonus for you, you're getting an even better deal". I should have been more careful, obviously his money is coming from the vendor not from me, if the news that its the freehold and the leasehold that are both on sale, they may put the price up, or use that to negotiate an offset on the cost of repairs.

Fingers crossed that Money-Man keeps quiet and the vendor remains unaware.

Gosh, isn't it getting complicated, and I'm only at stage 5 of 498,310! :)

More letters, and a little stress.

Ok I have a letter from the solicitor's office indicating I should sort out a will, but wait until the purchase is complete.

Another letter from the mortgage broker, requesting that they be allowed to contact me once the mortgage is in place, so that they can inform me of better deals in future. (Which they are not allowed to do currently without my permission, so they claim.)

And finally another letter from the mortgage broker confirming receipt of the part of the form that I didn't think I had to sign, that I sent them at the arse end of last week.

Now I'm just starting to stress about the survey tomorrow, I'm not sure if I want them to turn something up so I can knock a massive amount of the value of the house, or whether, I want nothing wrong (other than I already know of course) so we can go ahead.

On the one hand, if there is plenty wrong, I get the house for less, but I end up spending that money (and possibly more in the long run) fixing what needs to be fixed.

On the other hand, this goes though as stress free as possible.

Either way, I'm guessing the report will take a day or two to come though, and I need time to negotiate and slow this deal down, so that I can get a job quick smart!

Talking of which, no news as yet, although I did have a chat with the agency, who confirmed that I am in the top two of their candidates. I sent a promised email to the guy who interviewed me with the details of a couple of really good employment agencies. You never know, his parting gesture with that firm, may be to suggest they take me on as a result. (Yeah right!)

Other than that I have been put forward for a job doing foreign exchange trading systems work for a commodities company, although I expect nothing till the new year on that one.

Fingers crossed none-the-less. All mojo gratefully accepted!

Survey booked, more paperwork

The solicitor has started the paperwork. Seems I'm not buying a leasehold, I'm buying the freehold for the whole building, and becoming landlord to the other flat too. I'm not sure what the means, I shall have to do some more investigations.

I received the same signature form with a request to sign it directly from the mortgage lender after I had sent it to the mortgage broker. Left a message with the broker, I shall expect a call on Monday morning.

Finally, I have been charged £675 and the survey has been booked for Tuesday. At the very least I'm expecting the survey to pay for itself, I'm really hoping to knock another £10-15K of the price.

No news on the job, but I did get a call to say no feedback, which is cool, when they dry up, I know I haven't got the job.

Have a good weekend!

More signatures

I'm getting an offset mortgage, which means that you can set up a current account and a savings account, any funds in those accounts are offset against the principle value of the mortgage, reducing the interest charged each day.

I just want the savings account, not the current account, but it seems I still have to sign the signature slip for the current account, which then open and don't give me the documents for...

No I'm confused too, it doesn't make much sense does it?

Anyway, I printed out that page of the document and sent it off today.

Other than that no progress, I guess I have to hear about when the survey gets done, and what the results of that are now.

Mortgage approved

I have yet to supply all the required documentation for the mortgage, but it has already been approved subject to survey!

What on Earth are these lenders up to?

Oh well, my gain so I'm not complaining!

Made the commitment

Today I dropped the initial (good will) deposit off at the estate agents, and posted off all the documentation to the relevant people for the rest of the purchase.

I still haven't heard anything from the employment agency, apparently the HR department of the organisation in question still had heard nothing from the manager that interviewed everyone... bugger, maybe tomorrow.

Supposedly I have an interview to attend on Wednesday too, but I have heard nothing yet, I'll do a follow up tomorrow if I have heard nothing by mid-afternoon.

Call from the employment agent

No news on the Japanese banking job front, so Monday I guess... :(

However I did get a call from the other one, and he has an interview for me on Wednesday afternoon, and he's sending me the contract now! This job is for a minimum of 12 month, and what I need is a high rate for a long time, so that I can get the finances on this thing sorted out.

So its looking good.

I think on Monday, I'm going to commit to the funds to start progress with the mortgage, and if it all falls through, then it all falls through, it won't have cost me more than about £1200, but if I don't get things moving, I'm never going to meet the deadline.

I'm already 5 days into the 28 I have, and I have prevaricated the time away.

I'm going to have to do some pondering this weekend obviously.

Forms forms forms

Today I filled out the mortgage application form, the forms the solicitor required and the wrote the cheques everyone wanted.

Good grief, I have never collected so many bits of paper together, nor have I filled out such long forms in all my life.

It took about six hours and about ten phone calls to get all the information together in the end.

It's all enveloped up and ready to go, all I need now is confirmation I have a job, then I can actually post this lot off to the relevant people.

One problem is that they all want the same ID to prove I'm not money laundering, so I'll have to arrange for them to post it on to each other! How complex is that?

I had an employment agent call me up with a job he thought I was ideal for... He was so convinced in fact that he even suggested he give me a contract so I can get the mortgage underway... Problem is if I don't get a job, the house will be repossesed immediately, bad idea. Anyway he said he would get back to me later in the day, and didn't so he may have had a word with their legal department and they warned him off. Who knows, he may call back soon.

Stressed about the job

Today I just mostly concentrated on getting a job and tried to ignore the consequences of not getting one. I tried not to think about the house or the mortgage at all.