mhifoe

I'd say that is massively over the top. I picked up a leaflet from a local agent yesterday, and they charge £200 as an arrangement and credit checking fee. To be honest I think that is pretty steep! Paying almost a grand is ridiculous.

Indeed. The real tax abuser is Gordon Brown. He has managed to make a tax system so complex it requires huge armies of public servants to administer it. Not to mention the countless thousands of private sector accountants and advisers required to sort it all out. Most of the stupid council jobs are the governments fault as well. They wouldn't need to employ so many people to generate paperwork if there weren't so many pointless rules and initiatives to be followed.

He seemed like the sort of bloke who would loudly declare that black is white if he was told to. His claim that caving in on the retirement age for 3m public sector workers wouldn't cost any more money was laughable. The presenter's reply was good though. "Everything I know about economics, and even common sense tell me that's rubbish."

Do you think that HIPS will reduce the amount of people 'kite flying'? I'm quite surprised at the amount of stupidly priced properties that are marketed by estate agents, Is there any reason that Estate Agents don't just tell them where to go? The same even applies to rental property. I am looking for a house to rent and someone has put a 2 bed flat up for rent at 1100 pcm. Similar properties can be had for half that and you can rent a 5 bed house with a big garden in a prime location for less. It seems like a quite a lot of work for their Estate Agent with no likelyhood of a return on their work.

The discrepancy here is that you are comparing renting with an interest only mortgage. So in this case, your sister is not buying a house, but is instead renting it from the bank. As no capital is being repayed the extra £100pm repayment gets you nothing, but you do enjoy the liabilities associated with a £375k house. A repayment mortgage for this amount is £2200 at 5%. If the rental cost was approaching this figure, it would be worth considering buying the property.

Indeed. I heat my house with jeans from Tesco, so the massive increase in domestic fuel prices doesn't affect me at all.

CPI weightings are detailed here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/econ...ET620_Baran.pdf Some interesting weightings: Electricity: 1.4% Gas: 1.2% Restaurants & cafes: 10.8% Appliances and products for personal care: 2.1% Maybe this acurately represents Zorn's lifestyle, but it doesn't represent mine.

Are you suggesting that the fact that lots of people watch something is evidence that it is not dross? The fact that BBC1 broadcast populist drivel is hardly an argument for them to be funded by taxation. Commercial television companies are quite capable of producing programming that attracts high audience figures. If the BBC was a commercial enterprise, all the programmes in that list would still be made. So I say again, name some BBC1 programming that justifies its £1 billion budget.

I am suggesting that the BBC is not an all or nothing option. I am happy to pay for BBC2 and national radio, but BBC1 uses a large amount of the licence fee to provide dross. The licence fee could be cut by 30% without any loss of quality programming. BBC1 alone costs a billion pounds, whereas BBC2 costs far less than that. Most of the good programming you have listed is on BBC2 or radio. I don't believe Grandstand and Eastenders are good examples of the need for a public broadcaster.

Please note that I asked for programming on BBC1 as a way of addressing whether the licence fee could be reduced without sacrificing much in the way of public sector broadcasting. From your list, most of the stuff is not on BBC1 or is over 10 years old!

I am quite happy to pay for the BBC, but feel they should cut costs. BBC1 costs £1 billion a year to run. What high quality programming do they provide?

They could halve the licence fee quite easily. Here's the breakdown (%): BBC One 36.0 BBC Two 14.7 Digital television channels 10.2 BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and Five Live 10.1 Transmission and collection costs 10 Nations & English Regions television 8.9 Local and nations radio 6.4 bbc.co.uk 3.5 Digital radio stations 1.0 BBC1 appears to be the worst offender. £1 billion budget and most of the output is dross.

I'm sorry to hear about your trouble. His argument that it was in the contract is not valid as it is an unfair contract term and not enforceable. It it were me I would prevent them gaining access to the property. I see no reason why you shouldn't leave a key in the lock or move a couple of bits of furniture into the hallway. Hopefully if you can prevent them achieving a viewing they will get the message. It's a good warning about homes4u though, a company well worth avoiding.

They are behaving completely unreasonably. If they insist on entering the property without permission, you could always have a bit of fun. If they always enter through the front door and you use the rear door, why not use a door stop or a piece of wood under the door handle to prevent it being opened. Changing the alarm code so it goes off when they visit seems like a good idea.

The figures look good for buying, but are you considering the value of the deposit you will put on the house? It would be best to compare the rent you are paying with a mortgage for the full price of the property. A £320k mortgage for 25 years at 5% is £1333 interest-only and £1871 repayment. Good luck if you do go ahead though.

Interesting that the BBC choose not to print stories on the PSNCR or oil price rises. On radio 2 earlier the business bloke said 'It's been a quiet day on the markets, with the FTSE down 20'. Of course at the markets were a sea of red following Iran's announcement.

A quick look on rightmove shows that for £250k you can get a nice 4 or 5 bed detached house. There also seem to be quite a large number of flats for sale which specify they are off-plan resales (i.e. flippers). Anyone who would pay over £400k for an unbuilt 2 bed flat in Manchester is certifiable in my opinion. I really can't understand who would prefer a flat over a big house. It is similar in my area, poorly situated flats are for sale for similar money to grand victorian houses in prime locations. I can see these flats losing 50% of their value easily.

I would put money on the 'conspiracy' to kidnap Leo Blair happening something like this: Scene: Three fathers for justice campaigners are half cut in a pub somewhere. Man 1: That Tony Blair is a right ******. Man 2: I bet he wouldn't like it if he didn't have access to his kid. Maybe we should kidnap him? Man 3: Yeah, that'd piss him right off.

Indeed I have.

Indeed. Apart from the fact that a perfectly good computer costs under 400, has he never heard of a newspaper? My local newspaper has 100's of jobs in it and costs the princely sum of 35p. This sort of case really highlights how lax lending is though. Surely if someone like that went to a bank 20 years ago for a loan he would be denied it because he's a feckless waster.

I quite agree that if Iran had nuclear weapons and ICBMs they would pose a threat to the US. But they don't. Do you believe we should arrange a pre-emptive invasion to prevent any possible development of these technologies?

Where did I say I trust Iran? I merely think Iran represents a limited threat to the UK. If they start lobbing missiles at Israel I believe they can expect some retaliation from both Israel and the US. I am no Guardian reader thankyou very much. Iran certainly poses a threat to countries in its immediate area, and should be referred to the UN for building nuclear weapons. However, they are not Nazi germany and are not about to send armies marching across the globe. What do you propose is done about Iran?

There is a big difference between Iran and Nazi Germany. There is precisely zero chance of Iran waging an agressive war on any western power. Consider the consequences if Iran attempted to attack the US, glass parking lot in 20 minutes I should think. Iran may be 'bad', but they pose a limited threat. Even if they do procure nuclear weapons, who are they going to use them against without Iran being immediately obliterated? IMO the most likely nuclear threat comes from a terrorist in the US stealing nuclear material inside the United States. I believe that Iran has a good reason for wanting nuclear weapons, which is to protect itself from invasion. Any pariah state without nuclear weapons risks being invaded by the US.

I remember someone posted that a few weeks ago. An unbeatable example of comedy flat pricing. If I wanted to spend 1.5mil on a property in that area, I think this might be a better choice: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-296...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

I think some of the people who are BTLing are failing to investigate their local rental market. In my area, a 2 bed flat can be rented for about 500pcm, but looking on rightmove there are people trying to rent 'luxury' apartments for double that. As you can rent a 4 or 5 bed house for £800 pcm, they don't have a chance in hell of renting their properties.