Don't forget that he'll only be putting the interesting stuff - the failures - on YT and he'll probably be inspecting houses all day every day.
Don't forget that he'll only be putting the interesting stuff - the failures - on YT and he'll probably be inspecting houses all day every day.
I'd like to have back the 30s I lost watching that carp.
1. It's not purely "market forces" at work, and everyone knows it. Govt interference has done a lot to inflate house prices, and is the govt is 100% invested in preventing prices from correcting. In other countries, self builds are possible, but we make it nigh-on impossible to build your own home in this country.
2. It *is* better that the government tries to prevent homelessness than letting "market forces" create millions of homeless people. Thinking otherwise would make you a sociopath, really.
As for your own commentary.. Being a landlord is not proof that you are among the hardest working, most intelligent, fittest human beings in this country. It just means you had some capital to invest, and had no qualms about becoming a landlord. Anything else is pure assumption.
There are plenty of scummy slum landlords out there. Do you have admiration for them too? Are slum landlords among your Ubermensch that presumably also deserve adulation and congratulations for becoming landlords?
Bless you, but how do you think I had the capital to invest?
Do you think it was by magic? Or maybe by working hard and investing correctly?
Probably magic though eh?
You could have inherited it or won it at Vegas for all I know.. You could be a drug baron, or worse, an MP...
I have some standards, not that many, but I draw the line at an MP.
Looks like a skit to me, and are you saying everyone paying extortionate levels of rent and/or getting no fault evicted are work shy lazy halfwits who want something for nothing?
Hardly a no fault eviction if the tenant doesn’t pay their rent and starts to make daft excuses as to why.
If my tenant stops paying without a solution to repay what’s owed, then I’d hoof them out in a heartbeat.
Obviously that makes me literally Hilter, but hey
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Soldato
I think these are skits based on real-life occurrences.
Did you read your own links? It is talking about Britain's housing stock overall, not focused what has been built recently. Modern new builds are, in spite of the crap plots, far superior than anything thing we've built before.
English housing is worst in Europe, report finds
England has the lowest number of houses available in the developed world, and the highest rate of inadequate housing in Europe at 15%www.pbctoday.co.uk
British homes among the worst insulated in Europe
In Britain the average home loses three degrees Celsius of indoor temperature after five hours.www.newstatesman.com
Just do a Google search. There's no shortage of info about the state of the UK's housing.
e: will add some more
Why are Britain’s new homes built so badly?
We compare UK construction standards to those abroad – and talk to buyers deeply disillusioned by their experienceswww.theguardian.com
Our new build nightmare: New homes now average 157 defects,
Britain's new housing developments are often full of unhappy residents. Owners are complaining of soaring numbers of defectswww.thisismoney.co.uk
The welsh lad? He's quite funny. If you like him check out the leak detective too. Different subject but similar kinds of videos about finding swimming pool leaks etc.
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Man of Honour
The only thing I will say in defence of Foxy's comment is that new builds whilst up to modern building regs do suffer generally in the short medium term is niggles , but that's because we rely on plasterboard and cheaper internal partitioning, that said it's easier to insulate and keep warm but feels less solid. Also often they are not built with redundancy in place of upgrades (i.e. don't leave channels in walls for extra cables, accessibility to things built-in, etc...)
A more traditional brick built house tend to be more resilient however it costs more to remedy than modern housing as the amount of work needed is greater. Of course things are less well integrated in an older house and tends to be "bolt on". I mean we've got 3 new fuse boxes for things we've added to the house, the amount of work required to run cables neatly isn't great.
Modern regs with more solid building work is ideal but costs more. The snagging lists I've seen from modern builds are quite staggering. Then again it does depend on the contractor and the price you're willing to pay.
I said a no fault eviction, I didnt say eviction for non payment of rent.
But for reference if someone isnt paying rent you can evict them with a S8.
Associate
This is not a serious exchange though, its just clickbait. They are basically talking about a few different things (tenant/landlord rights, the general housing shortage with all the resultant effects, and homelessness).
I see the 'abolish landlordism' stuff often mentioned as seemingly some sort of solution to all 'housing' problems in the UK, which is obviously BS.
They aren't superior. Ask people in the trades if they'd live in a new build.
Look at the size of the houses building built. Smaller and smaller. No gardens. No drives. Crammed in as densely as possible.
Snagging lists with hundreds of faults. Attempts made to fake compliance with building regs.
Extremely cheap materials, fixings and fittings used. Poor standard of work.
To defend new builds is to defend in the indefensible.
Soldato
My new build is now 4 years old and is rubbish quality, after 4 years of snagging, over 30 people in different departments between NHBC, builders, sound engineers, tradespeople, surveyors, housing association and management companies most of the issues are still not resolved.
The biggest issue on my property is to do with sound insulation between properties which is part of building regulations, after finally proving to the housing association that the building doesn't match the certificate issued they finally presented a stack of emails showing the "remedial works" carried out post completion when they discovered it didn't meet the technical specifications. The building regs specify that if you don't follow the technical specifications to the letter, a pre completion sound test is required in site. Instead they modelled it in CAD and it barely scraped through. The report said "expected to achieve" in other words it still had to be sound tested on site, but the building control body allowed this, even though 2 other walls on site were not corrected for this issue and it would have been discovered if they had tested it.
I can't claim on the warranty because the warranty provider is the same company as the building control who issued the certificate. The builder won't fix it because they built to approved drawings issued by the developer, and the developer says there is no issue because building control signed it off as acceptable. Building control won't take responsibility because it is up to the developer to check their plans before submitting for approval.
I have it in writing them all admitting they've screwed up and it doesn't meet regulations, but trying to get it resolved while living there?
On top of that half the walls are out of plumb, the window doesn't lock because the frame isn't straight, the door wasn't sealed properly and let air in, because the frame wasn't fitted straight. The fitted kitchen door to the washer was fitted before it was levelled, the gas pipe into the property isn't sealed around the cavity wall (and exposed on the gas meter side too, should only be one, not both). The open plan staircase doesn't meet building regulations for sound insulation or thermal efficiency, none of the guttering is properly attached front and back, the bath isn't sealed to the wall, the shower screen was sealed the wrong way so any water getting inside leaked outside the bath. We found loose mains wires exposed above the kitchen not terminated, the soil stack exposed in the kitchen behind cabinets and not insulated. Walls not properly insulated, less than 30cm of insulation in the loft space, extractor vents extracting into loftspace and not outside. Expanding foam used to fill gap under plasterboard where the ceiling height was measured wrong. Electrics not securely fastened to switches (tripped when turning on/off lights). The YouTube snagger would enjoy filming around my flat.
If this was my own property I'd have all the plasterboard off and the internals rebuilt, but it's shared ownership and I have to go through their process. Even if they accept it's faulty and needs resolving, they won't pay it if it's not "cost effective" but they won't allow me to carry out the work myself unless I am qualified to do so because it's their property, or I use one of their approved contractors.
The biggest issue on my property is to do with sound insulation between properties which is part of building regulations, after finally proving to the housing association that the building doesn't match the certificate issued they finally presented a stack of emails showing the "remedial works" carried out post completion when they discovered it didn't meet the technical specifications. The building regs specify that if you don't follow the technical specifications to the letter, a pre completion sound test is required in site. Instead they modelled it in CAD and it barely scraped through. The report said "expected to achieve" in other words it still had to be sound tested on site, but the building control body allowed this, even though 2 other walls on site were not corrected for this issue and it would have been discovered if they had tested it.
I can't claim on the warranty because the warranty provider is the same company as the building control who issued the certificate. The builder won't fix it because they built to approved drawings issued by the developer, and the developer says there is no issue because building control signed it off as acceptable. Building control won't take responsibility because it is up to the developer to check their plans before submitting for approval.
I have it in writing them all admitting they've screwed up and it doesn't meet regulations, but trying to get it resolved while living there?
On top of that half the walls are out of plumb, the window doesn't lock because the frame isn't straight, the door wasn't sealed properly and let air in, because the frame wasn't fitted straight. The fitted kitchen door to the washer was fitted before it was levelled, the gas pipe into the property isn't sealed around the cavity wall (and exposed on the gas meter side too, should only be one, not both). The open plan staircase doesn't meet building regulations for sound insulation or thermal efficiency, none of the guttering is properly attached front and back, the bath isn't sealed to the wall, the shower screen was sealed the wrong way so any water getting inside leaked outside the bath. We found loose mains wires exposed above the kitchen not terminated, the soil stack exposed in the kitchen behind cabinets and not insulated. Walls not properly insulated, less than 30cm of insulation in the loft space, extractor vents extracting into loftspace and not outside. Expanding foam used to fill gap under plasterboard where the ceiling height was measured wrong. Electrics not securely fastened to switches (tripped when turning on/off lights). The YouTube snagger would enjoy filming around my flat.
If this was my own property I'd have all the plasterboard off and the internals rebuilt, but it's shared ownership and I have to go through their process. Even if they accept it's faulty and needs resolving, they won't pay it if it's not "cost effective" but they won't allow me to carry out the work myself unless I am qualified to do so because it's their property, or I use one of their approved contractors.
Thats a mighty wide brush you're painting with there.
I bought a new build two years ago, the number of items that were on my snagging list could be counted on one hand.
Any issues that cropped up during the warranty period were typically fixed within a matter of days / a week.
The house is so well insulated that despite being a 4 bed detached property, I used less than 6000kW of gas to heat it over the winter (and the wife and I both WFH and are home all day, every day) compared to the Ofgem average of 17,000kW for a home this size.
I have a garage big enough to park my modern car inside of in addition to racking, shelving, lawn mowers etc. The driveway is comfortably big enough for two cars and the developer has also included a large number of visitor parking spaces.
Your broad statements about new-build homes is almost as indefensible as your broad statements about private landlords (of which I am not, before you get out your pitchfork).
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Commissario
I think by the sounds of it your house was probably built by a good developer/builder, or possibly had a manager/foreman on hand far more often than is normal.
I know around my way they've put thousands of houses up in the last few years, usually using the same 2 or 3 designs for hundreds at a time, and they really don't have the parking or gardens, and talking to a few of the people that live in them it seems that often if there was a problem in one house (even major ones) it was there in a lot of the ones in the same estate, largely I suspect because of the way whey were built with the same teams making the same mistakes/taking the same shortcuts repeatedly and them never getting spotted before handover.
They are almost all much smaller than the equivalent 70's ones though, with much smaller gardens, as can be seen by the number of them where 2-4 older houses have been bought up and knocked down so they could build in at least twice as many new ones.
I do think that a modern house IF properly built to the plan should generally be much better in a lot of ways than older builds due to what the current regs require from the word go, however that really doesn't help when they are generally built smaller or to the minimum the regs require*, or when the builders/developers are being left on their own to do the builds and are actively hiding things because they know that if they can hide a fault (even if it's repeated across and entire estate) it's cheaper to pretend they didn't know about it and not fix it, or bodge it than redo it properly and maintain a QC system that ensures that such issues are caught earlier in the future.
Having said this, I'm reminded of a story my dad tells about how he and my mother moved into a new build estate of bungalows near MK in the late 60's, and how he got talking to some of the builders a couple of rows down as they were working on a house (that it turned out my nan bought, so she could be near my mum). Apparently the conversation went something like "that looks funny, doesn't it have a back door?" to which the reply was "It's not on the plans and we know they are wrong, but our foreman keeps telling us to keep the plans and he's a ****, so we're keeping to them, we'll let him explain to the boss".
The Back door ended up being built about six inches away from the front door, on the side of the house as it turned out the plans were very wrong for it's position as the end of the row.
*I've said before about how they build them to meet the disabled regs to the letter, or should I say millimetre, if the regs say a door has to be wide enough for a wheelchair it is, and the hallway is only as wide as is needed for that door frame.
I know around my way they've put thousands of houses up in the last few years, usually using the same 2 or 3 designs for hundreds at a time, and they really don't have the parking or gardens, and talking to a few of the people that live in them it seems that often if there was a problem in one house (even major ones) it was there in a lot of the ones in the same estate, largely I suspect because of the way whey were built with the same teams making the same mistakes/taking the same shortcuts repeatedly and them never getting spotted before handover.
They are almost all much smaller than the equivalent 70's ones though, with much smaller gardens, as can be seen by the number of them where 2-4 older houses have been bought up and knocked down so they could build in at least twice as many new ones.
I do think that a modern house IF properly built to the plan should generally be much better in a lot of ways than older builds due to what the current regs require from the word go, however that really doesn't help when they are generally built smaller or to the minimum the regs require*, or when the builders/developers are being left on their own to do the builds and are actively hiding things because they know that if they can hide a fault (even if it's repeated across and entire estate) it's cheaper to pretend they didn't know about it and not fix it, or bodge it than redo it properly and maintain a QC system that ensures that such issues are caught earlier in the future.
Having said this, I'm reminded of a story my dad tells about how he and my mother moved into a new build estate of bungalows near MK in the late 60's, and how he got talking to some of the builders a couple of rows down as they were working on a house (that it turned out my nan bought, so she could be near my mum). Apparently the conversation went something like "that looks funny, doesn't it have a back door?" to which the reply was "It's not on the plans and we know they are wrong, but our foreman keeps telling us to keep the plans and he's a ****, so we're keeping to them, we'll let him explain to the boss".
The Back door ended up being built about six inches away from the front door, on the side of the house as it turned out the plans were very wrong for it's position as the end of the row.
*I've said before about how they build them to meet the disabled regs to the letter, or should I say millimetre, if the regs say a door has to be wide enough for a wheelchair it is, and the hallway is only as wide as is needed for that door frame.
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Caporegime
As with all things, if you pay good money and manage to hire someone good, the outcome will be good. There are far too many cowboys out there however and there are far too few protections against them. The fact that a huge number of new builds go up with massive issues and the developer is still going years later speaks to the lack of oversight.
I would buy a new build but only one of the really nice and expensive ones. The cheap "how many can we fit on this tiny plot" cookie cutter ones are awful and the whole environment is oppressive and depressing. Theres that horrible photo doing the rounds of a photo from someones window looking over the 30 houses all facing each other with wonky fences separating the gardens. Miserable.
As to the UK housing stock being the worst in Europe, I simply don't believe that. Unless there is an international body that spends vast sums of money sending surveyors throughout Europe to properly look at housing stock you are comparing apples and oranges. We go to France on holiday quite a lot and the quality of almost all of the rental places is ****.
I would buy a new build but only one of the really nice and expensive ones. The cheap "how many can we fit on this tiny plot" cookie cutter ones are awful and the whole environment is oppressive and depressing. Theres that horrible photo doing the rounds of a photo from someones window looking over the 30 houses all facing each other with wonky fences separating the gardens. Miserable.
As to the UK housing stock being the worst in Europe, I simply don't believe that. Unless there is an international body that spends vast sums of money sending surveyors throughout Europe to properly look at housing stock you are comparing apples and oranges. We go to France on holiday quite a lot and the quality of almost all of the rental places is ****.
This was originally a very similar picture to how I saw new builds @FoxEye then we started looking at builders that weren't bottom of the barrel
Must say size/garden/plot wise Storey homes seems far superior to all of the other newbuild monkey oop norf
We ended up with a bellway build due to a **** of a buyer lol
Similar experience here the on site guys have been awesome when I've spoken with them (Bellway)
Garage only a single but happy with the size of everything else
Think the worst part of the new builds is how the gardens are like 1m deep of clay with a sprinkling of topsoil on top lol
I have a random question after seeing something today - and this seems the best thread for it.
If a retiree is a landlord they may be liable for tax of course. What I'm not clear on is that there is the usual income limit before incurring tax (personal allowance) but also a limit specifically regarding rental income of £1000.
Are these cumulative if they have no other income besides pension? Or is rental income considered totally separately and you can only earn £1000 in a year before you start paying tax on it? And what's the tax rate if it's not calculated in the same way as a PAYE income?
If a retiree is a landlord they may be liable for tax of course. What I'm not clear on is that there is the usual income limit before incurring tax (personal allowance) but also a limit specifically regarding rental income of £1000.
Are these cumulative if they have no other income besides pension? Or is rental income considered totally separately and you can only earn £1000 in a year before you start paying tax on it? And what's the tax rate if it's not calculated in the same way as a PAYE income?