Non-coupon related Drivel Thread 10

CouponWoman

Hi kerri and anyone else around.

My other house is a nightmare atm. The old woman still hasn;t signed the party wall agreement. Building costs have sky rocketed out of control and I am pulling my hair out. I actually regret ever buying the bungalow it definately was not worth the stress, problems, and the costs that are being forced on us.

When we bought the house the surveyor said it needs £70K spending on it, that was after we talked about what we wanted to do. The builder came and said approx £40K plus the garage. Same builder now says £200K for the work and we nearly died. So my dh and ds have been stripping the house out, took all the ceilings down and all the plaster off walls, all the skirtings, doors etc out while we all dither around. Builder now says £128K without the garage. But I want it down more.

Meeting yesterday with architect, which cost me £100 and the buillder and all they can say is take a loan out, or sell the house we live in to a company that lets you rent it back off them to free up some more money.

So I say knock off all the pointing for a start, my ds can do it and that should save at least £5K minimum but they don;t like that, they want the work. If we spend £100K we are taking the cost of the house to the top of the ceiling price for the area.

Anyway rant over. I will quietly go and get on with my nightmare house, lack of sleep and stress.

Hi kerri, hope you got your garden project sorted, its been a bit damp this summer so far so it might have slowed you down a bit but I am sure it will look great when you finish.

take care anyone who pops on the thread.
CWxx

kerri_gt

Hi CW

Oh my, I'm so sorry that something which started out as so perfect with some work has turned into a total nightmare. Why has the builder upped his quote so significantly? Can you get other quotes?

Is the old lady still being stubborn about the same issues with the party wall? I can't quite recall but can you go ahead with planning without her agreement even if it does mean discord in the neighbourly relations?

My garden issues are tiny in comparison to your problems, though needless to say thr budget came and went some time ago. It is nearly finished (thank goodness) but now the builder wants to get another tradesman in to finish some parts that aren't his forte...which is fine except good tradespeople obviously available at the drop of a hat so now I'm waiting to hear when someone can actually come and do what's needed. It's now nearly three months since the job started, which was expected to take a few weeks....so we're hoping for an Indian summer to actually get to use the finished article this summer.

I do hope things take a turn for the positive with your house, keep posting on here if you feel the need / want to vent x

CouponWoman

Hi kerri

we have had numerous meetings with the old lady and her nephew and they won#t back down. This only concerns the garage and utility room which is attached to the garage. We had a meeting with the builder and the people next door and they wanted me to pay for some extra drains on their land to attach to my drains at MY COST and still won;t sign the party wall agreement. I am not letting her attach her drains to mine, thats it, and definately not at my cost.

The only way we can force the issue is if we take it further legally. That means party wall surveyors and as she has said she won;t let them on her land it means I would have to take legal action against her. As we need all the money we can get our hand son for the house we have no choice but to temporarily drop the garage/utility/extension plans for now.

When we bought the house the estate agent said it needs £40k spending on it and tbh we didn;t believe that. The surveyor said around £70k which we thought was probably more like it.

We asked the builder who was building an extension on the house facing to come and he said around £40K plus the garage etc. We thought more like £70k in total. we got plans drawn, got planning permission and needed a structural surveyor too and all well we thought till we asked for a proper quote.

The builder looked at the plans etc and came back with just over £200K for what we wanted doing. Well there is no way on earth I am paying that. My ds and dh have took the plaster off walls, took the ceilings down, removed skirtings, doors and are now removing the floorboards as well and removing all the stuff to the tip. We told the builder we will take all the rubbish to the tip in our car, that will save at least £6k as its £220 a skip and he reckons we would need at least 25.

After we said forget the garage etc the price came down to £128k but thats still too much and some things in that we can do ourselves, my son can do the pointing for example if he has to that should save at least £5k again. But the builder says "oh thats a drop in the ocean and its only £25 a metre", well to me every time we remove a job it brings the price down but he is being quite difficult as was the architect when we had a meeting the other day and they keep trying to force me to take a loan out to pay for it.

tbh I really wish I had never bought this house. It was supposed to be the perfect house but its now the house from hell. My dh has used all his accident compensation to pay for this and I do not want to take out loans. (he had a serious accident a few years ago) but he does what he can to help even if its only sweeping up, he is trying. But everything is falling on my son and its just a nightmare.

Why don;t builders tick to the quote, yours has gone over budget too and they assume your pocket is always full to pay for things. I don;t know what the other tradesman is but surely that work was included in his quote anyway even if they sub it out to someone else. I dont think the weather will improve tbh, we have rain most days here and that has a knock on effect on working on the house and your garden unfortunately. Good luck with your project and hope it all looks fabulous when finished.

CWxx