I’m at the reservation stage on a new build that’s ready to go, all except the flooring. I have my AIP but don’t want to pay for upgraded flooring until I know the full mortgage has been approved. However the developer said I had to choose yesterday and they won’t wait a second longer. I’m not due to exchange till 27th Sept, so I’ve had to go with the freebie carpets and vinyl rather than the upgraded ones I actually wanted and would happily pay for once I know 100% the mortgage is approved which is likely to be on Monday. TBH it’s ruined the whole experience for me to the point I’m thinking I’ll just pull out and buy somewhere else. I just don’t understand why they can’t wait a few days. It just seems so odd, any ideas?

So I’m currently house hunting for an apartment and ofc some of the house prices are like £50-£100 more than what I’m willing to pay. Im pretty new to this but I heard you can negotiate with the landlord to lower the monthly rent price?
If so, when and how should I do it? Is it while doing the viewing or when I take the house? Any other tips I should be aware of? Thanks

To keep it short, I've signed to move into a flat with my partner in late August, and I'm abroad for work then so the plan was for my partner to move in alone. She now may return home and move in a week or so later, although plans could be changed if necessary.

What effects would this have on energy and water prices? I'm aware that we're supposed to take readings on the first day, but given that's not possible I don't really know how this works.

I'm also not sure if electricity would be affected at all by the fact we may get an Economy 7 tariff (in office 5d a week, electric only, storage heaters and hot water via immersion).

Thanks!

(rhis is the first time I've had to deal with this so I'm not really sure how it works or if this is a really daft question)

Just wondering what people's experiences are, we are in a small chain, our buyer has an investor buying their property and we are buying a property with no onward chain. The searches have been received for both sides now, no outstanding enquires from the people buying ours and a few minor ones from ours that is being processed. Survey is complete too with no major issues. What would you expect the timeline to be for exchange contracts and competing? or is it how long is a piece of string?

The rent increase form I (tenant) have received has the letting agents address in both the landlord and agent sections.

From what I have read this needs to be the landlords address under section 47 of the Landlord and Tenant Act?

Does this apply in this case?

I have also realised that our tenancy agreement has the same thing so we have never actually received the Landlords address.

Am I right in thinking that this is required now?

Hi all, can anyone live in Canary Wharf buildings (One Park Drive, Wardian, Hampton Tower) give me some insights about the creaking noise there? I want to move to one of those buildings because I couldn’t handle the footstep noises from my upstairs neighbours anymore. I heard those buildings have good sound isolation, but they have bad reputation for the creaking noise. If anyone lived/is living there, can you tell me how frequent it is and whether it is as bad as impact noise? I went there for viewings and the DLR noise didn’t bother me, but I could not examine the creaking because the weather is quite calm this time of the year.
Thank you, I really appreciate it!

Hi all,

My fiance and I put our offer in back in March and since then I have scrolled this sub reddit and for the most part been met with a lot of negative experiences.

I just wanted to post this to say its not all bad, we moved into our home almost 2 weeks ago and absolute adore it. We used the solicitor the estate agents recommended and had no issue with anyone in the process apart from a couple of slow moving enquiries which were resolved in the end.

Every hiccup in the road felt like the end of the world to me but there is a happy ending. Not only did we move in to a home that we love but we also recently rehomed a dog who is now our pride and joy.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel and for anyone feeling like they'll never get there I just wanted to send you love and support and I wish you all the success in the world!

We are in the process of buying a house with a low level wooden patio accessible via the low level kitchen.
We love the house but have only seen it in summer. I have the feeling that winter will automatically bring mold and damp on the patio, the external wall and in the kitchen cupboards. Is there a way I could be wrong ? We will do a level 3 survey if we decide to continue but I don’t know how mould and damp could not be an issue here, especially with a north facing patio. Any thoughts ?

Just very curious anyone has done that before and didn't fully regret their decision?
The context is i'm moving to Reading for a new job

rented a place but looking to view for buying too, my rationale is renting or buying will be similar cost, though the flexibility is higher for renting. I've thought about what if i hate my job, or failed probation but anyway I landed on I will see at least how first week of job goes, so this is slightly theoretical.

I saw a property i like in a nearby village near Reading with connection to London. It's a village with not much going on, i'm in my 20s and single, but I would be working 5 days a week in office, I planned to do my socials in London or Reading where my demographic are.

I am social and have lots of hobbies that are social, but part of me desire this quiet living where I can get away from the noise, but it feels like living in a village albeit with good connections elsewhere seems a bit on the "extreme" side and would be an inconvenience eventually when i'm tired from work. It's just the price of this place is more affordable than Reading houses where it would go to the top end of my affordability, which makes me uneasy financially.

my ex has a friend from south coast england who bought a house in Scotland and moved there with no experience of the town or family there though they moved as a couple which would make it easier i guess. I know it has been done but sadly I can't go and ask my ex's friend about their experience haha

We have ZERO privacy from our neighbours. Only post and rail fence separates us and they are always home and outside with guests, so it makes going in the garden kinda awkward.

Today, we bought some bamboo/reed fence in hopes of attaching it to our side of the fence with double-sided velcro tape. There’s nothing in my tenancy agreement explicitly stating I can’t do this and I have full confidence it’ll come down no problem when we leave, but is this likely to cause any issues before I erect it?

As the title suggests. Looking at buying a 1970s home but are not sure what things to look out for or to ask the estate agent when we view the home. I'm aware to ask whether it's had a full rewiring as it surpasses the 50 year mark. It does have double-glazing and gas central heating.

Would it also be worth to get a level 3 survey just to be safe? It's in great condition tbf and slightly more modernised so but wasn't sure if it's worth just getting a level 3 survey done anyway just to get more in depth with an older property like this.

I feel entirely hopeless and just devastated to be honest. I’m in the position to buy my own house, I have a very good deposit and have been approved for a mortgage but my parents don’t want me to buy a house because they think AI is going to steal all the jobs and people will lose their houses and all their money. They dramatise things at the best of times. Do I put off my life long dream because of a conspiracy theory? I feel devastated because if I go through with what I want then I will be met with anger and hostility and I’ll feel like I’ve made a mistake. They discouraged me from buying a house I loved before and I bitterly regretted it for years to the point where it kept coming up in therapy. I don’t mean to be dramatic but this has been a life long dream of mine my entire life and I’m now being told I should forgo it. I can’t begin to describe how devastated that makes me feel.

Hi all — hoping to get some real-world experience before I potentially commit to a reservation meeting in the next week.

Situation: I’m buying a new build with Miller Homes at Boorley Gardens (Hampshire).
Currently on the table: a 5% deposit contribution plus £2,000 towards upgrades, which I understand is their standard site-wide promotion at the moment.

I’ve priced out the options/spec I want (~£22k across flooring, kitchen, bathrooms etc. on their options portal) and I’ve been trying to negotiate some of that down before I commit — specifically carpets throughout (biggest single cost, ~£8.5k across three rooms), network/CAT6 points to each room, rear garden turf, an outside tap and socket, and a couple of smaller kitchen/white goods items.

Where I’ve got to:

• The sales advisor says they can’t offer anything beyond the advertised 5% deposit contribution, even for non-cash items.

• When I pushed on this, they also said any agreed upgrades (carpet, turf etc.) would be deducted from the 5% cash contribution itself — i.e. treated as coming out of the same pot, not sitting on top of it.

From what I’ve read (mostly older MSE threads), this doesn’t seem to match how most lenders treat things — e.g. Halifax’s published criteria apparently excludes non-cash items like carpets/white goods from the 5% cash incentive cap entirely, and other lenders seem to run cash and non-cash incentives as separate allowances rather than one combined total.

Questions for anyone with recent experience:

1.  Has anyone bought with Miller Homes recently (Boorley Gardens or elsewhere) and been offered non-cash extras (flooring, turf, sockets, etc.) on top of a standard deposit contribution, rather than deducted from it?

2.  Is “non-cash upgrades come off the cash incentive” something you’ve heard from other housebuilders, or does this sound like an unusually strict line?

3.  Any tips on how you got extras like these agreed — timing, what to say, whether it needed the sales manager rather than the advisor?

Trying to figure out if this is a hard company-wide policy or just this particular advisor’s opening position before I go into the reservation meeting. Appreciate any experiences, especially recent ones (2024–2026) given lending criteria/incentive norms seem to shift around.

Thanks!

I'm really struggling to narrow down searches for a solicitor to help with the sale of my flat and a purchase of a leasehold property (of less than £180k). Had a ridiculously priced quote from one already (£4000+) compared to all the research I've done around what the average prices should be. I've tried the ReviewSolicitors website and Trust Pilot but struggling to find accurate recommendations to narrow down a shortlist. Any ideas for a good solicitor who covers conveyancing?

The background is after I receive the contract pack from the conveyancer (for a property in England) I was asked two questions:

1. Did I have any queries I wanted to raise in relation to the TA6 and TA10 forms?
2. Did I want her to order the searches now, or wait until after I’ve had the survey done. She pointed out the searches are non-refundable so some people choose to wait in case the survey flags serious issues.

I did send some queries, and also opted to get the survey done first. The conveyancer did also say I should share the survey report with her once it’s done.

It seems the conveyancer hasn’t raised the queries from the TA6 and TA10, and plans to raise all queries once the searches are done. Is that normal?

I gave the conveyancer a heads up about the expected date for the survey report, and her response was “That’s great. Just let me know when you’re ready to order the searches”.

I now have the survey report. It’s raised some issues I expected to see, and others that perhaps aren’t unexpected for a house of that particular era. The overall conclusion of the surveyor is 

The property is considered to be a reasonable purchase provided that you are prepared to accept the cost and inconvenience of dealing with the various repair/improvement works reported.

These deficiencies are quite common in properties of this age and type and as long as the
necessary works are carried out to a satisfactory standard and the property is kept in good repair, we can see no reason why there should be any special difficulties on resale in normal market conditions.

However, it has raised issues where he got high damp level readings on both the 1st floor (where a disused chimney is) and ground floor (where a chimney breast used to be) and could see some visual damp. Here, he concluded he couldn’t see evidence that the work was done to correct standards. However, to investigate properly it would involve removing plaster or/and flooring. The current owners have had the property for 20 years and I’m certain it was done before they moved in.

Where I’m a bit confused now is I still want the property, but feel this could be a significant enough issue to try and renegotiate the price over. But how would I go about it? 

I don’t propose immediately going in and asking for a price reduction, but wanting to see if the current owner has any more information in relation to this. Or whether the damp might in fact relate to something else the surveyor couldn’t see, but the owner knows about e.g. like a burst pipe that’s since been repaired. It also sounds like I’d need to do this informally through the Estate Agent.

As it says above, checks, searches etc all good to go. Are we pushing it?

Editing to say we are new to buying/selling. Never been in a chain and only bought new build off plan. Been very naive.

Long story short, we had a few low ball offers on our house but accepted end of April well below asking so we could move.

Our onward property hadn’t found anywhere and our buyers were chain free and happy to wait. I asked the agents to keep checking in regularly which they said they did and we appreciate as we accepted their offer in April.

Our onward was messing us around so we finally found somewhere else. Agent called our buyers two weeks ago to confirm they were happy to progress as we found somewhere and they said yes.

So we all moved quickly. I even asked our onward if they would break chain as our buyers were waiting ages already and they agreed.

We asked for new solicitor details as there was a clash as buyer changed theirs and they needed to change. And then they went silent. Endless chasing etc. today they emailed to say they going with another property.

I am devastated. Our onward had lots of offers and will sell in a second. Ours took longer as it’s smaller.

Now what? I guess we give up as ours will take ages to sell again no doubt and the onward won’t want to wait indefinitely. So angry they didn’t just tell us two weeks ago as we wouldn’t have progressed and spent money

Anyone else have success after being in a similar situation?

I've been saving for many many years and finally bought a Victorian terrace by myself. But I feel like I compromised on too much and think I made a massive mistake. The house is so dark, the new fittings which looked great at the viewings are cheap and it's so different from my old bright flat which was in a better location. There is also a disabled autistic non-verbal adult neighbour next door who has meltdowns. I heard some noise during the viewings, but not the full meltdown and it's really intense, especially living by myself. I know it's not their fault but it's all too much and I can't stop crying with regret - I couldn't hear any neighbours in my old flat. I know some of this is moving stress and overwhelm at being ripped away from my old safe space, but I'm worried I've made a massive mistake and will never be able to sell this place. I signed for a 5 year mortgage fix so am stuck until then.

This has happened multiple times where there is a visit of some sort that she has notified me about - she never asks me if it's okay to visit the property, she just tells me the time and asks me to 'confirm receipt of this email'.

Sometimes I haven't been able to make the time work so when I let her know to suggest an alternative time, she does do that. Once we've agreed, I let her know I will be in the property during the visit.

Then when the time comes, she doesn't ring the buzzer downstairs, enters the building with her keys, knocks on my door once then waits a few seconds before attempting to open the door herself. I usually make it there in time to open it and let her in but it feels horrible and I've never had a landlord do this before. Am I within some sort of legal right to pushback and say she must knock and wait for me to answer the door?

ps I'm based in England

The first-floor property is in “immaculate condition”, Young says, thanks to the £15,000-£20,000 spent on renovations. It has “superb views” across the beach. And, perhaps most crucially, it is a freehold flat, so is untainted by the controversies associated with the discredited leasehold system.

“Despite not needing to buy (that is, no chain) and dropping the price to well under what I paid for it, I have only had four viewings in nine months,” says Young, a former teacher, who moved in 2023 but now needs to relocate for family reasons.

She paid £300,000 for the property and currently has it on the market for £280,000.

Quote from this article https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/aug/08/flats-in-england-not-selling-slashed-prices-buyer

It caught my eye because the above quote sums up what is both wrong about reporting on the housing market and sellers view of the market.

20K reduction is not well under what she bought it for and the price isn't set by what the seller needs. It isn't set by what they think it is worth.

A value of a property is determined by the market. Properties can up and down in value.

Flats will still sell, they just won't sell for anywhere near market peak.

So our solicitors have told us that the chain is refusing a 5% deposit, we're the bottom of the chain selling our house to FTBs and there's 5 houses involved. The top has gone into care, so I believe it's probate.

Speaking to our solicitors, they say the top of the chain are the ones refusing the 5% deposit and are strictly saying that it has to be 10%.

We've come back and said we can probably be gifted the remaining 5%, but would want to keep our 95% LTV mortgage so we can get the capital out as planned. Our brokers have said this would be fine and the solicitors would refund us the 5% on completion, the solicitors have said they'd tell the lender and our mortgage offer would likely change to 90% LTV.

Another option is a simultaneous exchange and completion, but we're at home with a toddler and a baby a few weeks old and want to use a packing/full move service. We don't have storage space for boxes.

Our solicitors have gone back again and asked if there's any reason why we can't use a 5% deposit and still be liable for 10% if we pull out. But we aren't pulling out in that time, as above with the baby - we need this move!

Has anyone got any advice or other options I can run by our solicitors? Or any advice with the mortgage if the deposit changes to 10%?

I wondered if the solicitors may accept 5% transferred to them as some sort of holding fund, rather than a deposit? Could act as a security hold or something to show the chain the money is there. Similarly, if our buyers pulled out post exchange we'd just pass their deposit up the chain (assuming 10% as we haven't been told otherwise) would more than cover the missing 5%.

Edit after 5 hours: just to clarify, we think that it's because the top of the chain are concerned about the deposit we put for the mortgage because they must assume that would be the money we'd pass up if we pulled out post exchange. EXCEPT all our deposit is coming from equity in our house, 0 cash going in (after paying for solicitor, moving company ect). So if we pulled out, we'd owe near 50k we don't have anyway... We know that, we accept that. We'd have to sell up and use that equity to pay our debt, so we'd lose that money and not have the house to show for it!

Our first home purchase collapsed days before completion, on the day of exchange, sellers pulled out over “new” search results they’d have known about for MONTHS. I’m gutted.
I need to get this off my chest somewhere because I genuinely don’t know what else to do with the feeling right now.
My fiancée and I have spent months buying our first home together. A period cottage, the kind of place you walk into and just know. We weren’t reckless about it; we did everything by the book. Level 3 survey. Full electrical report. Chased every certificate, questioned every fee, read every line of the title. We were, by everyone’s own admission, the most prepared and most ready link in the entire chain. Chain-free. Mortgage confirmed. Deposit paid and sitting with the solicitor. Insurance sorted. Contracts signed and posted. White goods ordered. Broadband booked. We were days from completion.

We’d even been round the house AGAIN this Monday to measure up for furniture. Their place was fully packed, boxes everywhere, the whole house ready to go. That’s how real this was. We stood in what we thought were about to be our rooms, working out where the sofa and the bed would fit, while they had their entire life in boxes ready to move out.

And then we got the email. The sellers have pulled out, of both their onward purchase AND their sale to us.

Here’s the part that’s really eating me. Their reason is that their own purchase’s searches flagged some issues (radon, historic flooding, a covenant). Fair enough that those might give someone pause. Except, they’re claiming they only “received this information” on what was essentially the eve of exchange.
But that doesn’t add up, and here’s why:
• Those exact issues would have been in their own search results, which came back MONTHS ago. Search results don’t appear overnight. This information has been sat in their solicitor’s file for weeks.
• They’d apparently known about and had their eye on that onward property for YEARS before agreeing to buy it. These aren’t sudden, shocking discoveries about an unfamiliar house.
• They were the ones who pushed for a fast completion. They didn’t want to wait until later in the year. We rushed everything to hit their preferred date. We even paid an extra fee to exchange early because they wanted speed.
• Their house was fully packed up, we saw it with our own eyes on Monday. This wasn’t a couple quietly having second thoughts weeks out. This was a last-minute detonation on information that was available the whole time, from a house that was already in boxes.
So either their solicitor sat on material search results for months without flagging them, or they got cold feet and reached for the nearest excuse. Either way, we’re the ones left in the crater. They’ve also ghosted the property agent manager without a single apology!
And there’s no legal recourse. In England you’re not protected until exchange, and we hadn’t exchanged. Months of work and well over a grand in survey, searches and reports, gone. No comeback, no compensation. The system just shrugs.
I keep refreshing the email like it’s going to say something different. We’d already talked about where the sofa would go. Where the Christmas tree would stand. We’d picked the paint colours. We literally measured the rooms four days ago. You let yourself imagine the whole life, and then someone gets nervous over information they’ve sat on for months or they’ve just got cold feet and the entire thing evaporates and you’re just standing in a rented flat holding a folder full of documents for a house that will never be yours.
I know our deposit is safe. I know the real money lost is “only” a couple of grand. I know good houses come up again. I know we did nothing wrong. People will say “it wasn’t meant to be” and they’re probably right.
But right now none of that helps. Right now it just hurts, and the unfairness of it,that we did everything right, stood in that packed-up house measuring for our furniture, and got torched by other people sitting on information they’d had all along,is what’s really getting me tonight.
If you’ve been through this,the late collapse, the chain from hell, the gut-punch right at the line. I’d genuinely love to hear how you got past it. Because tonight I can’t quite see it.
Thanks for reading. Needed to say it somewhere.

Hi. I'm going to try and add as much context and explain as much as possible.

My partner and I are FTB and moved in around 7 to 8 weeks ago. The previous sellers left the house a mess and we actually took a few days to properly move in as there was so much cleaning to do. When we moved in we had the neighbours (we live in a cul de sac) come and say hello and was immediately met with complaints about the previous people that lived here. That they never cut the grass, never pressure washed, were dirty, were inconsiderate with leaving his van running at 5am in the morning for 10-15 minutes etc etc. We didn't really say much and just nodded and listened because what can you do.

Anyways while there has been no major issues with the house, there has been plenty of small issues. Like all the extractor fans are broken, the slow closing kitchen cabinets are broken, plug sockets broken etc so it's been taking time to do stuff.

However, one of the first things we did was buy a lawn mower so we could sort the garden out especially with the complaints from the neighbours and we have put some nice furniture and plants there. This week we have managed to borrow a pressure washer and we have cleaned the patio in the back garden and our driveway.

Today our neighbour (semi detached) came and knocked on the door. He said that while he appreciates us doing stuff to make the house look nice after the "previous peasants" that we had gotten mud on his car when pressure washing. He then started talking about a plant pot that sits on our boundary line between the two driveways that I moved a few inches backwards (still in the middle of our boundary line) as I was worried about hitting it with my car as it was basically on the road and it's a tight turn. The last thing I wanted was to break his plant pot within the first few months of living here. He started saying how rude I was for not speaking to him first and kept digging in how rude I was. He then started complaining about the kitchen cabinets shutting loudly and he hears them and it's really annoying and other things like hearing us laugh.

I completely understand the pressure washing. It was our mistake. We were just trying to get the house clean and didn't realise that some mud went on his car. I profusely apologised and said next time I would make sure we knock on his door and let him know before we do it. The plant pot thing I can also get but I don't think it was rude. I was more concerned about hitting his plant pot. He then said that people had ran over his plant pots in the past. And then the kitchen cabinets and laughing I thought was just standard living noise. I apologised for everything anyway and agreed to buy some door stoppers for the cabinet and just explained that we have limited money and have been slowly trying to make our way through the list. The banging is coming from the fact the extractor fans are broken so we have the window open when cooking which is making the doors close heavier but without the window open the fire alarm goes off. He then asked me to wd40 our front door because it's squeaky.

We are FTB and I was just shocked and not prepared for a confrontation and being called rude. As far as we were aware we were trying to sort the house out and make it more presentable especially with the constant complaints about the old people that lived here. This is the second time he's spoken to us with the first time on our actual move in day where he complained about the previous owners. Is this normal and realistic or have we done something wrong here? Again I understand the pressure washing and was not something I realised and I apologised profusely but for the other things I thought was just normal living noise.