oneleftleg

and discuss.... http://www.homesforheroesuk.co.uk

I work for a company under contract to the UK government. The company only exists to provide this particular service to the government and has no private clients and has been this way for 60 odd years. Short of the company losing the contract (safe for another 3 years) we have always considered are jobs bullet proof. A few weeks ago we were told that a third of the staff employed in my area would be axed. Pressure from the cash strapeed government filtering down to us and of course bosses wanting to comply to help our chances of getting the contract renewed. Fortunately I got through the redundancy assessment and I've kept my job, but we are all a bit shaken...

It's getting fishier... apparently the missing millionaire was branded "not to be trusted" bya judge last year... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/263...be-trusted.html

Well seeing as I am actually living just south of Calgary, perhaps I should put this home entertaining debate to rest! I can confirm that largely due to the big distances between things (50km to our nearest town) we do 90% of our entertaining at home and yes we do do a lot of it outside! We barbecue all year round (except perhaps during the week when it hit -50c) and had a great party outside in March when the snow was still on the ground, we stacked the beer up in the snow drifts... I have photos to prove it! :-) I do still miss UK pubs though! :-)

Perhaps my lack of information lead to that emoticon. I'm not a FTB, I have a small 10 year fixed rate mortgage Without a property, I have no home longterm (first concern) and therefore no tenant and a reduced income. Trust me, I'm no get rich quicker! Crikey, with that level of cynicism I think I'll be in and out of this forum with two posts!

Viewed a 2 bedroom period semi in a desirable part of the south-east in March. It needed EVERYTHING doing. Only bathroom was downstairs, kitchen needed gutting, no central heating etc. etc. On the market for £425K, but had enormous potential. I'm not in a chain and have a mortage secured. In a slightly different situation to most here in that I'm working abroad, so there would be some advantage to buying and getting a tenant into my main home to start paying off the mortgage for me. Anyway, went home did the maths on the work that needed doing on the property, estimated a value for it once rennovated and went back and offered £325K to the agent. he described it as an "outrageous offer" and it was unsurprisingly turned down. The feedback we got was that the vendors were in no hurry to sell and wanted the full price. However a fortnight later it was dropped to £395K and now has a sale agreed, but I'm just waiting for it to fall through... I will now only make "outrageous offers" until someone accepts one! PS - This is my first post, I've been a lurker for several weeks, but had huge difficulties registering and in the end had to re-register with a different email address.