Things No One Told You About Being a Home Owner

There is a lot of pressure to get that first step on the property ladder - the theory goes that if you're renting you're only paying someone else's mortgage, so you're just forking our 'dead' money into a bottomless pit. 

There's a lot of focus about how you're best to get that foot on the property-rung, but what about after you've picked up the keys?  Hubby and I have been in our first home for just over a year now, and we've discovered that the learning doesn't stop after you complete.

Redo-It-Yourself

What happens when you move in to your new home and discover that the kitchen sink is rotten, or that someone had sawn through the floorboards in the spareroom or that only thing stopping the water-tank from crashing through the ceiling is one small plastic crate?  We uncovered all of the above in the last 12 months.  It also seems that the people we bought our house from had a thing for No-More-Nails.  No job too big for No-More-Nails... including sticking the bathroom light to the ceiling, fixing curtain rails, hanging curtain rails...

A little part of your New-Home-Owner brain makes you assume that your lovely new home will be shiney and new... the bubble quickly bursts when you're scrambling around in your loft trying to build a wooden frame around the header tank.

Be prepared to flex your DIY muscles - never assume that the people who were there before you didn't cut corners.

Maintaining boundaries

Your survey, and your solicitor will have told you which boarders you have responsibility for, so you're prepared to replace fence panels if they blow over.  But what you might not expect is your neighbour to complain to a door-to-door hedge-trimmer-man that the evergreens in your backyard are interrupting their Sky signal...

Tradesmen: It's not what you know, it's who you know

Sometimes no matter how much Googling you do, or Youtube videos you watch, the task remains beyond your DIY skills.  When that happens, your only option is to call in the big-guns.  But where do you start?  If you're like me and move to a new area away from family, how do you know where to turn to?

I have to recommend sites such as Mybuilder - you post the job you need completing on a board, and interested parties can 'bid' for your business (you can read reviews and see photos of previous work), all without sharing your personal details - or Trust A Trader where you can find the details of recommended tradesmen and women.  I've found a fantastic plasterer and a super double-glazer - and I'm not afraid to ask for more help when I need it.

I guess I really am a grown up.

House Buying: Why I refuse to risk homelessness

There's a big difference between a house and a home.  And today I realised, that I'd rather lose a house, then ever risk the stability of a home.

But then maybe I'm beung unreasonable?

You may be aware that Hubby and I are trying to buy our first house. We've had our offer accepted.  We've sorted the mortgage. We've had the survey done. Problem is, we haven't handed in our notice on our rented flat, and today we find out that delaying two months may be a deal breaker.

For those who have never been in the buying process,  you don't legally need to buy a house, nor the seller sell you the house until you have exchanged contracts... a position we hoped to be in next week. Once we had things signed and sealed we'd hand in our notice.

Personally, I think this is reasonable.

It might be longer than average gap between exchange and completion but as we live no where near relatives, if we somehow end up with no roof over our heads (which is possible if the sellers pull out and we've given notice prior to exchange), to put it bluntly,  we'd be screwed... Bunking down on Park benches and curling up in our own cars becomes genuine possibilities.

But it's like talking to a wall to get the estate agent to grasp this fact.  I'd rather risk losing the house we're trying to buy, than end up without a home.

On top of that, our first-time-buyer wallets are already stretched to breaking point to reach an agreeable sale price, so moving into the house early and still paying rent on our flat just isn't an option (no matter how many times the estate agent 'strongly recommends' it). 

The thing is, I could almost understand the agents insistence on us moving faster if we hadn't mentioned it before.  But we did. I have 2 separate emails to prove it. And I'm genuinely not sure how much clearer the sentence 'We will not hand our notice in until exchange, and then we have to give 2 months notice' can be... so goodness knows why all of this has come as a surprise.

This whole situation is making me angry as the agent's attempts to smooth things over - not by fully recognising his mistake (oh no, apparently he simply 'misunderstood') - involved asking me if I would negotiate with my landlord to let me out of sone of our notice period.

Brilliant.  You don't want to explain to your client that you mucked up, so instead of taking a deep breath and having an awkward conversation you'd rather send the buyers to do the dirty work.  I'm sorry.  I refuse.

I'm starting to wonder whether this latest debarcle may just end up being the straw that breaks the camel's back... I'm honestly now on the cusp of not caring.

What will be will be...