kingstonexpat

I think people are earning cash doing a lot of stuff that can be hidden or partially hidden from the taxman. On the weekend, I picked up some stuff from a guy with a huge amount of firesale (?) stuff on his FB and Gumtree selling account. Looking for a cheapish used runabout car, same thing. Loads of FB sellers clearly reselling cheap cars, sell 1 a week it's probably £300-500 profit on an old banger worth £2-3k, tax-free? Firesale guy met me to take my cash and give me my goods (some stuff for my home gym) at his regular workplace which happened to be a pub where he no doubt earns minimum wage and may even be on a zero hours contract. The guy probably needs to buy and sell stuff on his side hustle on Gumtree just to pay the rent. And this is the only-minorly illegal stuff (i.e. skiving on tax). When I'm out early on a run or on my bike I pass many flash cars stopped in lay-bys or cul-de-sacs "meeting" others and that's the more illegal/dangerous side of the side hustle. Bottom line: why work a full time job for minimum wage or pay tax on any low income when you can deal weed, or sell used old banger cars for cash in hand as and when you need it? This is where we are right now.

Just looking at this again. Am I missing something, or what's the point of those exterior stairs?

Went for 235k in the end. So that's a hefty increase. Nice property though, all that garden around it. https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/17-harburn-road/west-calder/eh55-8aq/61516361/

One near us was up for planning permission to make a former 4 bed family home into a 7 bed HMO about 15 years ago on an estate full of 1980s era 2/3/4 bed houses. At the time it was a non-licensed 6 bed, not more than 6 person HMO. The application was quite literally titled "Change of use to House in Multiple Occupation with 7 no. Letting Rooms". Rejected by council due to noise, lack of parking, detriment to neighbourhood amenity, etc. But at some point they went ahead and did it anyway, as I noticed the other week there's was an application last year called "Certificate of Lawfulness (Existing) for use of the property as a 7 bedroom House in Multiple Occupancy (HMO)." Approved by council now despite a number of objections about guess what... noise, lack of parking, rubbish, detriment to neighbourhood amenity, etc. So that's 7 households with at least 8 people according to the docs, but could be up to 14 adults living there now? On a street full of houses lived in by families. The floor plan contained no measurements so how does the council know it meets minimum requirements for a 2 person room, and who would check anyway if there were 2 people to a room? The neighbours complained that their house value has plummetted and they are right. Who wants to live next door to that? But this could happen anywhere nowadays, right next door to you in fact. They've already given HMOs single dwelling council tax bands to make it easier on HMO owners, now all the local councils need to do is start charging more council tax than they would get from a single family house the same size and it's a money maker for them.

This reads like something out of the script for The Death of Stalin (brilliant film by the way). The Russian elites are their own greatest enemies.

Was looking at this one today as I bookmarked it out of curiosity. Down to 8k now at auction. That's what, 15% of the original asking price?

Judging from the groups of 16-25 year old boys/men I see on a regular basis in my town during the day and evenings, they are pretty much off-grid from this whole system. They've rejected it wholesale for something easier and more lucrative, mainly dealing drugs with the odd side gig of mugging/burglary/theft. And it's hard to blame them for that, the system is indeed broken.

What a strange listing. Is it an HMO/small business office? (pics of 3 chairs and screens set up in a row behind the pool table). Why all the unpacked boxes and stuff?

Near us, a planning proposal has just gone through its third appeal and finally won in the High Court, so now 80 houses will be built on a floodplain right next to a small river that regularly overflows and the old canal course, like it or not. Looking at the plans, these are going to be fairly big houses going for 400k+, so not cheap council houses or "affordable" housing. Fools and their money and all that.

Landlord exiting the market. But trying to sell with tenants in situ and not finding any buyers.

So 4 bedrooms according to the RM headers: 3 double bedrooms according to the write-up But actually only two proper bedrooms plus a small office according to floorplan. Can't imagine why anyone would think Bellway was even halfway competent at building houses when they are clearly incompetent at marketing them.

Especially given they are quite terrible quality on the whole. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/21/cracked-tiles-wonky-gutters-leaning-walls-why-are-britains-new-houses-so-rubbish

Who would buy that nightmare? You get the house and associated buildings, only to have them sell off separately the right to add 3x 4 bedroom houses literally in your back garden, or build themselves. Run away, run away fast.

In Canada, municipal/property (local council) tax is paid by the landlord. Even when we rented an entire house (as students) we did not have our names on the local tax bill. Definitely easier to keep track of the property's owner rather than the transients who live in the property when it comes to making sure the tax is paid -- I have no idea why it isn't done this way here, except due to the usual British "it's always been done this way/our way is the best" thinking.

I noticed this today, when a few houses near me that have been listed for a while but have failed to sell at asking are now "new" listings under Homewise. I've been watching this market for 2+ years now and never seen this before -- this is an 1980s suburban area in a large town with mostly 2-floor detached/semi detached 3-4 bed houses. The places are already listed with at least one estate agent, and those listings are still active. Is Homewise targetting these listings and owners, do we think?

Does the EA determine where the pin should fall on the map, or is it automatically done by RM? I see so many where the pin is nowhere near the property (usually down the road or around the corner) but this one is really bad. The map shows it in the middle of Putney Heath, so quite a nice surroundings at first glance. But in reality it's on the south circular, several miles away.

Not living in one of the cities listed these days but it's not a "willing" choice if you're a decent private renter with kids, family, jobs who just wants a quiet life without debts, threats and Section whatevers hanging over you. Landlord raises rent, you negotiate but usually end up paying it. Moving out is always an option but then you've got the hassle of finding a new place (also at inflated rent), sorting the move, kids' schools, paying rent in 2 places for a month, etc. When we were evicted from our rental home of 10 years 18 months ago due to a vindictive pensioner amateur landlord not understanding that the estate agents were vipers parting him with way more of his money than we ever did, it was a very stressful time for me. We lucked out finding a new place (moving miles away as we had intended but not under quite so drastic circumstances) and not having to pay more than a week's rent in 2 places but I don't want to go through that again. Hence we will be buying in the next year, now that we've moved to a town where we can afford a decent house and the prices are dropping. That said, I still watch Rightmove for rental houses similar to what we have, and the last 3 or 4 have been advertised above what we are currently paying but quickly reduced £100/month or more within a few weeks, so rents aren't rising here right now. So if we suddenly had to move again we would probably be all right to keep renting. In a year, who knows. Hopefully we'll have bought by then.

They aren't that small, roughly 6 inches by 4 inches each. £17 for 3 of that size. But still the size of a pan of brownies you could make at home for a fiver. Personally I wouldn't buy this type of thing but it helps your argument to be accurate. "3 small square" is not what is on offer.

Nice but with a huge new village, or villages rather, being built right on top of it. Nightmare getting around if you live out there.

You need to save them in a Rightmove list, then they are saved forever really, even when they go off the market. When you see a "new" property listed that looks familiar, you can go back to your list and scroll down to find the original listing.

What's omitted from the RM listing but not the brochure is that this is essentially a holiday home, nobody can be living in it for one month per year (usually January). Not to mention rather steep services charges of over £7k/year, also casually omitted from the RM listing.

In the most recent one, no, same price. Weird though. It's like they want to advertise that a house they said was STC 6 months ago actually did get sold, by listing it again with STC as a pre-checked box? Will make a note to check the LR in another couple of months to see the actual date.

Yep I've noticed this too. To the point where the old listing is removed (but as I saved it in my RM list I still have access to it) and the new one appears and they are identical, just the date is different!

The Open Rent landlord forum is the same...

There's a sitting tenant. So you'd have to evict with Section 21, wait 2 years to actually get them out, and hope they don't set fire to it as the bailiffs come knocking. They may have stopped paying rent months ago with no intention of resuming? Admittedly £5k still a good punt but without ever getting to see in the inside of it, it's a risk. Can you do surveys etc. with sitting tenants refusing access?