ToilAndTrouble

I thought the pension relief taper was 40%? So for each pound your fund pays out you lose 40p. T&T

Not suckered, sucked. During the boom times things worked like this: Directors put together business plan making £X million of revenue from dotcom piece of software over next 24 months Techy's or managers say it's take 12 months min with Y resources. Work has to begin immediately. Techy's get told to employ Y people within 4 weeks. Techy's do Y * 5 interviews. Y / 3 people are suitable. Managers say, take the best Y. 2Y/3 people who don't have the skills or intelligence are "sucked into the industry". 18 months later software isn't ready, business plan fails and Y/2 people are made redundant. Those who aren't skilled go back to stacking shelves... until the next boom. T&T

I wonder if the debate could possibly rise above the "they'er all sh@t", "no, you're all sh@t" level. There's a mix of skill levels in both countries. If you're seeing poor staff blame the recruitment and retention procedures. There are loads of decent IT people in Britain. There are also many crap ones, many of whom got sucked into IT during the dotcom employment boom. T&T

Don't be too cynical. I was suprised at the responses I got from the three MP's I wrote to concerning the Manchester Metrolink extension being canned. The response from the Labour MP addressed my specific points and some keen researcher included photocopied hansard with the bits relevant to my letter highlighted. Regardless of the outcome, at least they were made to think about my concerns enough to respond and who knows, that could have made a difference. T&T

The BBC techs were working on a more open streaming format called Ogg Vorbis, but their managers pulled the resources. Shame really. RealPlayer is evil malware. T&T

I imagine most people with equity in their home who can't make payments voluntarily sell and downsize. T&T

This is my great hope for our future. Bolox to your solar panels... bring the Sun to us! T&T

Some mortgage providers are charging arrangement fees as a percentage of the mortgage. This helps them lower the interest rate to appear more competitive. This is particularly the case for fixed rate or introductory offer mortgages. Try adding the fee to the interest rate during the redemption penalty or fixed period to see if the loan is competitive. E.g. £4000 is 1.43% of £280,000. If the redemption penalty/fixed period is 2 years, then add about 0.7% to the interest rate. If it was me, I'd be insisting on fee transparency when dealing with a broker or mortgage company. Also, money saving expert have recommendations for on-line brokers with decent mortgage search tools and fee rebates. Check out the best deal there. Good luck, and welcome to the biggest pyramid scheme in history, T&T

You should offset the amount against the rent. As explained above, you're perfectly entitled to do this. T&T

Tenant's dilemna... you would like to expose the lying scumbag for what he is, but you live in his house and need to get on. I would suggest either: A polite letter with copies of the phone bill reminding him of the calls. Hopefully then he'll come to his senses. If you feel the LL is being economical with the truth then try to avoid dealing with this over the phone. Ignoring the issue. At this point it's up to the LL to take this further. T&T

Wierd, but I've noticed the same here (Stockport). I thought it was just the EA's being lazy and not getting the board changed, but most of them are still for sale in the EA window. T&T

I'm guessing that there's three possible reasons for the clause: o It's a standard clause in his standard tenancy agreement. If so, he might give you the go-ahead. o He doesn't want a dish on the house - you'll have to negotiate with him. o It's in the agreement due to a covenant on the property barring dishes - you're screwed. In any case, you signed the agreement, so he's in the driving seat. My advice would be to not get unreasonable... and that means, if he says no, then that's fine, as he's perfectly entitled to. If the existing aerial is faulty is is required to fix it however. T&T PS: Depending on the wording and interpretation, it might be possible to use a dish that's not attached to the house. I doubt Sky would install it, and they're more expensive, but that could be a way around it.

What a crock... they quote leveraged return, but forget to deduct loan servicing costs. T&T

Mmm... 2005's in the north west. T&T

I'll summarise for you. RICS say rents up, ONS disagrees, shows rent growth 1-2% less than wage growth for a good number of years now. T&T