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. :)