Starla

It's periodically IN the Thames. There's a reason why Sasha Baron Cohen chose it as Ali Gs chav base. I've seen an encampment of tents last Summer in Richmond. A316 Richmond side as you drive through Deer Park. Tents, washing lines, the lot. If you're going to camp you may as well make it somewhere decent.

Great that you chose to adopt/rescue. Unfortunately it doesn't fit with a lot of peoples shiny-new-designer-disposable narrative.

I volunteer for an animal charity and foster unwanted, abused, neglected pets, until we can find them their forever home with a permanent adopter. There's a whole range of reasons why people give up their pets, breakups, rental properties not allowing them, but the most common reason is people get them on a whim and can't be bothered to look after them. They don't think about the time, cost and commitment. Most people think they love their pets but haven't got the first clue about minimum RSPCA recommended cage sizes, food, bedding, exercise or correct care. As there are no pet welfare laws enforced at a basic care level, and the Nemesis, Pets at Home, keeps churning out pets and bad information, I don't see it as a bad thing that pet ownership is declining. Apart from a few long established pets, I don't think animals should be in cages anyway. A lady who adopted an animal last week did tell me a funny story about her landlord coming round so she put her pets (variety of rodents) in the wardrobe and turned the radio up really loud so he couldn't hear them rustling and squeaking. Edit: I'm looking at this as "work experience" for my CV as it's definitely occurred to me that Pet Sitting/Holiday Care is a good move post my corporate job.

Sorry, there's always one smart-**** But, it is a serious point, and the article is quoting stats for Stress, Anxiety, Sleep Problems, Depression and Panic Attacks. The point is if we're now at the stage of the bubble cycle where even the BBC are admitting the damage housing problems cause, then we're past the "Denial" stage for sure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39631083

And so it begins. According to this post in MSE anyway. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5748543#topofpage Seller Hikes Asking Price Hi,My partner and I are FTBs due to exchange on our property in 2 weeks and complete soon after. The stamp duty changes mean that we save 5k on what we would have paid earlier.Our seller has emailed us saying that he expects prices to rise significantly as a result of the changes (gave me some guff about how the extra money towards a deposit can now be leveraged by buyers 4-5 times to get a mortgage 20-25k bigger, etc) and has said that he wants 10k more. I'm hopeful that he is open to negotiation but essentially I guess he wants us to fork over the stamp duty saving to him.We definitely can't afford 10k more (unless we go back to our mortgage broker to see if we can get a bigger mortgage).I know there's no law against the seller pulling out before exchange, but any tips on how to handle this?Cheers.

By 2027 they will have eliminated rough sleeping altogether. I fear for the safety of the rough sleepers.

Panorama now on bbc 1...

I was thinking of the 10k of the rental income being pushed into the 40% tax band. I didn't consider the child benefit aspect. Nice! In this case they do. This is the BTLer I've mentioned before on here that didn't pay tax on rental income and HMRC caught up with them 6 years later. They'd have to be seriously stupid to try and evade tax again. My BTler isn't immune to Section 24 and they're about to take the massive shaft. They don't think it will affect them because they are completely ignorant and financially illiterate. No other reason.

Same. I've reluctantly explained S24 to 2 BTLers. Annoyed with myself as it ruined the surprise. One BTLer looked glazed and said it didn't affect them. 40k paye salary, plus £16200 annual rental income tells me it does. Whatever.

It was a happy ending. They paid up.

The dividend cut affects me, as I'll be running at about £3,500 in dividend payments next year. Thought I'd be sailing nicely under the £5,000 threshold, but no. Issue (first world problem) is they're all in a work sharescheme account which I've just left ticking along without much thought. Doing a bit of digging I might be able to transfer a tranch of 20k's worth doing a Bed & ISA. I.e. selling the holding, moving the cash into a Shares & Stocks ISA, then re-purchasing the shares. Apparently the sale and purchase are almost instantaneous so you're not potentially stuffed over by price movement. I've no idea how easy this is? Otherwise it's sell them, re-buy them and hopefully at a lower price. There will be stamp duty(tax), 0.5% (£100) and trading fees, so that will be marginally more expensive than the Dividend Tax in the first year (affairs arranged so I'm paying 20% tax, i.e. 7.5% on divs). By the time that's sorted, they'll be taxing ISA's.

I've said before on here that I would more than happily take a commission only role at HMRC, flushing out non payers of tax on rental income. I'd be extremely motivated at work and have no problems hitting any targets. Venger for Team Leader Yes and they do. Amateur BTL'er at work got a surprise from HMRC, after letting a flat out 6 years previously.

Great idea. Look out for the new government policy of sticking the price of a chicken up to £51.

Maajid Nawaz at LBC Radio is covering the personal debt issue on his call in today. He's talking about Israel at the moment and then he's moving on to "Are you in debt and how do you cope?"