Property ladder, get ready to be mounted!
What a difference a week makes!
Me and Techno-Scouse (just remembered the most fitting pseudonym for my pint-sized petite-amie) have decided to purchase a flat. Our very first bought home! How exciting!?!
It’s been quite a week. We knew we were going to be moving on from our current house, as the landlady just got too weird. This is the woman who has the most unnerving twitch whenever she talks- her head just wobbles… its like there’s a small child who’s caught her on a fishing line, and is trying to reel her in. Anyway… as well as being generally useless, she also has the IRRITATING habit of just appearing at seemingly random times to get the monthly rent payment. If we were lucky, we would get a day’s notice.
The visits weren’t just limited to that either- we had a new window and door fitted to the kitchen. No biggie, so far. However, instead of simply letting the workman in and leaving him to do his job, the jiggly-brained freak spent a whole day in our house. OUR HOUSE… she may own the flippin place, but we have rights under that tenancy agreement (that i wrote because you’re a tight-arsed menteller) that include quiet enjoyment of the property. In other words, BUGGER OFF!!! Oh, and as if that wasn’t the worst bit, I came back from work to find her and one of the elderly neighbours (from 2 doors down) sat on our sofa drinking our tea.
Seriously… why I didn’t just sit between them and drop one, I can’t explain!
Anyway, on with the diatribe: The other crowning achievement of the landlord’s home-improvement scheme was the renovation of the kitchen and lounge. What this actually meant was new doors on the cupboards, and some shiny new tiles. So far, so good. The other major job was to paint the lounge walls white. This is fair enough… or it would be if it wasn’t for the fact that THE WALLS WERE WHITE ALREADY.
Pillock.
What is the point of painting a wall white, if you only painted it white 1 year ago?
And in return for these extravagent pieces of cosmetic work, Madame La Spoon wanted to increase the rent by 100 quid ($200 for any colonial types).
I will admit that our initial rent had been reduced, because the house was going to be subject to some serious work. The genius wanted to convert the loft, and also put a shower room in behind the kitchen (I couldn’t be arsed to ask why this would be remotely useful, given that the bathroom upstairs was crap to start with and the improvements would have been welcome). This would have required a lot of sweaty builders for a long time, so obviously it was fair enough to have cheap rent. Unfortunately, brainiac worked out that this work would require money, and so cancelled it all.
Strangely, the work that was done did not quite justify a chunky rent review! So I sent back a very well structured letter suggesting a more reasonable alternative. Unsurprisingly, I think this over-taxed her brain and I got a call back from her on my way to work. I got the impression that she was hoping for me to back down, when she said she had decided not to renew the tenancy. I could actually detect her realising how screwed she was (not a pretty image, and I apologise) when my response was “Cool- that actually suits us down to the ground.”
Well that is more than enough background to this little tale. So the big question arose: should we buy or rent? renting is mostly easier, and cheaper on a monthly basis. On the other hand, it’s dead money and property prices are not shrinking.
We had a look on the market, made a few enquiries that told us we could get a hefty mortgage that would cover anywhere reasonable in this tin-can town. So we were going to buy.
And then we weren’t. The actual costs involved- mainly conveyancing solicitors (just because you aren’t on public funding, it doesn’t mean you can just use a random number generator to create your fees) were prohibitively expensive. So we were back looking at renting. Ho-hum.
And then we were again!!! We decided that we’d still have a chat with top fella Steve anyway, as he is a mortgage adviser (and a bloody good one as it turns out). Then we decided to have a look at a few places.
Firstly, a 3 bedroom house that was decorated by someone blind, senile, 97, or sadistic. On the plus side, you could safely vomit on any of the carpets without noticing. Providing you didn’t die from falling down the stairs, because of the total lack of a bannister.
Rather than go through some relatively boring detail on the other places we looked at, we have now agreed to buy a ground-floor flat, with LOADS of space, a second bedroom that I will gradually take over as my office/retreat/centre of operations, and lots of wood panelling in the bathroom. Ok, so it’s not perfect, but we like it and can’t wait to get in there.
I am now shattered… so that’s all i will write.
for now!
Bollacks! She sounds like she’s a tad loopy if she’s sitting on your couch with some old hag from down the way and drinking your tea. I’d tell her to sod off and then slam the door in her face.