Reducing Debt - being accountable and taking responsibility

wishingthemortgaheaway

Sorry to hear about your stresses over this. I don't know either, it does seem that conveyancing is a dark art to be practiced only by those 'in the know'.

Wish.

PositiveBalance

Ya boo sucks!


I hope they get it over the line for you, soon!

DrSpendLittle

Still not over the line on the house front. Leasehold nightmare. Hoping for a move date before September!

Savings still going well but haven't done YNAB for a week or so - that's today's job. Probably still around £4.5K as we've spent some money on things for the new house and had a few extra legal costs during July.

Looking forward to getting back to some sort of normality soon.

DSL

enthusiasticsaver

Sorry the house move taking so long. Management company administration hold ups?

DrSpendLittle

Thanks Enthusiastic. Its to do with the lease - should have been removed when we bought the freehold a few years ago but wasn't. All very complicated, even the Land Registry and Buyers solicitors are confused. Hope it doesn't drag on too much as our sellers are getting tetchy! Fingers crossed

wishingthemortgaheaway

Boooo. When you bought the freehold did you get sent the deeds?
We had a 'ground rent' rather than leasehold which we bought a few years ago. They sent me the deeds, interestingly if/when we sell our house we could choose to keep this and charge ground rent (maximum of £4 per annum) to the new owners, we wouldn't, but I'm sure the transfer of it will cause a little confusion.

DrSpendLittle

It's all super complicated, Wish. We bought the land under the house a few years ago, thus making the house freehold. However, ours and our neighbours houses all sit within land that we use for access / parking (its a small estate). We also bought this land with our neighbours and set up a maintenance company to manage it. We think the maintenance company land is subject to a head lease and we think it is that head lease that still appears on our house's freehold title. It's all so confusing and has even confused our buyers solicitor and the land registry. Somewhere along the way, the solicitors we used to buy the freehold have messed up. Or the land registry have messed up. No one knows.

Fingers crossed we hear something soon from the land registry about a resolution. It's taken nearly four weeks already - apparently the issue was reviewed by a senior officer this week and sent on to their the legal team on Friday. I'm just hoping that doesn't mean further delays. Fingers crossed it just means the officer is awaiting a decision to be legally signed off and we can then exchange this coming week and move the following week. Ugh. We've been on tenterhooks waiting for exchange for what seems like months now.

But, it is what it is. Can't do anything about now.

At least it means we're paying more off our current mortgage and making more savings from our salaries. We've decided to treat ourselves to something special when we finally get the keys

DrSpendLittle

Feeling generally frugal at the moment but have had some expenses like toiletries recently that have made a dent in the monthly savings. I tend to run out of everything all at once and it soon adds up.

I've also bought a few things for myself too - some new shoes for work and some winter boots. I suppose these weren't needs, they were wants, but I think I've been so fed up with the house sale that I've resorted to treating myself

We also bought a few things for the new house last month when we thought we'd actually be moving - JL had a good summer sale so we took advantage and ticked a few things off the list. It's all currently sitting in boxes in my living room :rotfl:

DF and I have been terrible with food spends over the last few weeks. Too many takeaways. To be fair, we'd been running down the freezer in anticipation of moving. With planning to have just 7 days between exchange and completion, we needed to keep the freezer and fridge contents to a minimum. However, thats been going on for 6 weeks now and we've totally lost the plot :rotfl:

However, we've given ourselves a good talking too and we've actually meal planned for this week. I did the food shop yesterday - F&V from Aldee and meat etc from W4itrose. Hopefully we can get back on track for however long it is we're still living here. Intend to get better with work lunches too.

All in all, not a very MSE few weeks but we're hopefully back on track.

Bank balance is just over £5K and it seems so normal now to see that figure when I log into online banking. Two years ago I was nearly £14K in debt. It's been 2 years since my LBM - I can still remember those feelings of frustration at how I let my finances get into such a state. I don't think I'll forget them.

DSL

wishingthemortgaheaway

DSL, that does sound complicated, hope it's sorted very soon.

Good luck for the move (when it happens) I do enjoy your updates, so keep posting please.

DrSpendLittle

Thanks Wish! I will definitely keep on posting - in fact, I've been inspired by you and I'm tempted to start a MFW diary, probably on this board as I like it here. The people are nice and I feel settled. I calculated last night that if I make an overpayment of £100 per month on our new mortgage, it will knock 1 year off the term. If I make a £200 overpayment, it'll be two years. It's very motivating. DF and I won't start doing this until we are settled and fully used to our new finances. I reckon it'll be 6-9 months before we start and the maths will have changed by then, but we are certainty going to get cracking on it when we can and I look forward to 'catching up' so its back to £100 per month = 1 year off the term. I'm looking forward to posting the financials when we're ready - it's going to be a big long slog though as there are a few £000,000s to shift!

Just made a phone call to the land registry to get an update on the house saga and it appears that their legal team signed off the senior officers recommended course of action on Saturday and its been passed back to the officer for processing . The chap on the end of the phone was going to email the officer to alert him too . We're hopeful for good news this week on proceeding to exchange. I really, really hope so. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us!

I feel back in the MSE game today. I've reconciled YNAB and everything is up to date. I had a NSD yesterday and will have one again today, save for paying the window cleaner but that was already set aside.

Savings are now up to £4,700 which will easily cover my part of the moving costs - estate agent fees (£2640) + movers (c. £1,000) - with some to spare. We'll also have an extra £1,176 from paying down our existing mortgage during the moving delay. So, all positive on that front. We already have our emergency fund and a further house repairs fund sorted (we're buying an old house so it's prudent to set aside a 'new roof fund' just in case). Our regular monthly savings will need allocating to defined goals, one of which will be a mortgage overpayment. We'll probably need a new to us car at some point in the next 3 or so years too. Lots to think about. Fortunately the house we buying is in really good condition so there isn't much to do in the way of renovations - a lick of paint should suffice. But, the boiler and range are quite old so we need to be careful about these as they are expensive to replace.

Right, enough wittering, back to work, that was a rather long lunch break! Ooops.