curlewhouse

I think the most shocking part of that programme was what was said about the average skill level on new entrants to the building trade actually falling. It's one heck of an uphill battle nationally.

Well, we finally got there. Yaay! The solicitors eventually spoke to us and denied ever refusing to! By sheer coincidence of course, this was after I'd mentioned the words "Law society" - funny that. anyway, they still kept throwing more spanners in the works (far too many to list) to the point where we asked them why they seemed to be actively going out of their way to stop it going ahead, and my normally calm wife sent them an email to "JUST GET ON WITH IT". . It also turned out they didn't need the architects indemnity anyway since we have a warranty! But that was quite typical of the experience and they persisted looking hard for any problems they could find even up to the Friday before the mortgage was due to complete on the Monday (after telling me all was now fine and they'd requested the funds and there were absolutely no further issues ) by sending an email after 5p.m on Friday so we couldn't call back, saying they'd decided one of our signatures didn't look quite right so would need further verification! I mean you couldn't make this stuff up. So that left us from feeling we'd finally battled through and got there to an entire weekend (again) not knowing if it was all stopped again. I'm all for due diligence, but this timing was quite refined cruelty really on their part. The pressure was from the delays each time increasing the possibility of losing our place in the SIPs manufacturing queue and thus also our builder needing to schedule his guys, (so us losing a 2017 build) - both being very patient and reasonably with us despite me having passed on the promises of "soon" which we were given by BS/BL & the solicitors, and which kept proving false over and over. It was embarrassing really. But anyway, despite their best efforts, the lolly came through and so once again we are moving forward. SIPs due in June! So next is getting the remainder of the land levelled now the soil is dry, then also digging out the trenches for water and electricity. I'll have to book some time off work and get a digger hired again. Meantime I've made up the temporary building water supply as shown here. There's a very specific layout you have to comply with form it (the legs you can see will be buried, and a lockable door has to be fitted). So you have to have 15mm pipe, and from the bottom, stopcock , double check valve, drain cock, tap. no good using a tap with a double check valve, you still have to have one fitted above the stopcock. The drain cock is curious given that it will drain literally 1 foot of pipe! Belt & braces I guess. On the plus side, you pay a one-off charge of about £32 for as much building water as you need, which is fair enough and not excessive at all I think. I asked about the eventual permanent pipe connection as the paperwork says they will fit a "15mm water meter" - which had me wondering if they meant I had to run a 15mm pipe to it, which seems very odd. But the guy says no, run a MDPE 25mm pipe for that. So where the 15mm comes in I'm unsure - seems pointless running 25mm if the output from the meter is 15mm (though of course whilst your interior cold water pipes are 15mm, you'd think that wherever the smallest bore in the supply run is will limit it, so if it's 15mm at the meter, even having 25 after that won't improve flow - I'd planned to put 32mm in, but the waterboard guy says 25mm, so that's what I've had delivered). As you can see in the diagram they show 15mm for the temp supply, but I struggled to get an answer as to whether I've got to run 15mm all the way to the main (as implied in that diagram) or if I can (as you'd expect) connect it to some 25mm for the undergound section. Theres nothing in their documentation to that effect, and you'd expect to be using MDPE underground really. Meantime we are using the 2 IBC containers I picked up for an absolute song the other week, filled from a fortunately non metered source and several joined up hosepipes.

Ours was really helpful when we were having our difficulties with the planners and was a calming influence. He explained everything and didn't assume just because if I knew what he was talking about that my wife necessarily did, and did that without seeming condescending. I'd say he certainly did a lot more than design the house ( he even arranged for me to go to a site and actually have a go with ICF to see if it was something we wanted to do).

I agree, it's an overly precise interpretation of the word, and the basic rule is that words used in legal documents should be interpreted to have their common meaning, but unfortunately, it's how the building society solicitor chooses to interpret it and his/her advice to the Building Society that's caused the issue. I rang the solicitor who had drawn up the easement for the PC (paid for by us) and explained the issue, and said if I got the PC to agree, could he draw up the required letter/"license" at my cost - I did it in a calm and non-accusatory manner as it's far more important to resolve it than it is to look for blame, but interestingly he got immediately defensive and quite bolshy... saying it was our fault for not noticing he'd done that ... and no, he couldn't do it quickly as he's busy but would do it in a "reasonable time" - we're talking a 1 paragraph letter! So I drew up a document myself in 5 minutes, and emailed it to the building society solicitor.... who says yes, it's worded correctly the way I have done it. I wonder what that solicitor would have charged me when he eventually got round to it? The Parish Council were brilliant, I'd emailed the clerk about the situation and was copied into an email from the Chair within a couple of hours, sent to the other Parish Councillors and the clerk saying she was anxious we should not feel discouraged and could they action this ASAP - I mean how nice is that? So I went to the meeting and last night they signed the document for me. I've attached the blank here just as an example if anyone is interested. I made it only for the duration of the build, though the PC said they'd be happy for it to be permanent. But that would need me to make it a deed and to have that registered etc would take more time than we have right now, so we also discussed the long term implications, and whether it would be worth me getting the wording changed on the easement (as the easement is registered to the village green so that would need doing all over again) and as they said, who on earth is going to A, know about it, or B going to try and stop us having deliveries from couriers or a tradesman call anyway? Plus, as a dyed in the wool DIYer, I'm likely to be constructing it in one form or another for the rest of my life ! Interesting that the solicitor got bolshy about it though and immediately gone for "blame" when I wasn't - I think he must have felt he'd screwed up. But it does show the danger of adding even one extra word into a legal document when there's no real need for it to be there. Being in the National park, no one would ever get permission for it to be anything other than a house where it is, even if they wanted to, so the word is superfluous anyway. So now we have to wait until after the bank holiday to get it to them and see if they change their mind about the wording or manage to think up something else to put in our way. They were rumbling last week about the fact that the easement is not registered against our land at the land registry. I pointed out that this is irrelevant as the easement exists, they have a copy, is properly drawn up and legal (a little too much in this last case), and is registered against the village green itself, and there is no legal requirement for it to be on our LR document (though it is more convenient as a rule for anyone who comes along later to buy the property in years to come, but that's going to be the least of my worries ). But they may come back on this - I hope not as it would add weeks and weeks if they insist on it being registered as a deed rather than allow it as a licence. I've asked them (for the 4th time) to check and be sure there is nothing else they want, to avoid this drip feeding of problems/documents they want (which is exactly what Buildloan did too and put us so off schedule - we seem terribly inefficient in this country about this sort of thing) , and just ask me for them all at once, (we could have resolved this a month ago if they had) and the only thing they thought they did not have was our architects indemnity insurance (which actually I had sent to one of the now 4 solicitors/paralegals who have handled our case there), so I've sent that off again plus uploaded it onto their case tracker system .... but we fully expect them to be looking hard for some other reason to halt/delay things from their form so far. I was saying to my wife that I'm actually mentally tired of having to fight people every inch of the way. I think what's made it harder is hardly any of it is "real", it's all just paperwork keeping solicitors rich and clerks in jobs. But at least being able to do some real work on the site has made us feel some progress is happening, though the stress ending up so up against the clock was completely avoidable if these various folks had simply done their jobs - nothing more. I am at the point now where when I get in from work, I'm almost dreading checking my email for fear of what delay/halt they've managed to come up with this time. This last one was so out of the blue and at such a last minute stage. EasementconstructionANONYMISED.pdf

Not that one PeterW - oddly, from yesterday they are now speaking to me... and deny ever refusing to . It may have been after I said I was going to contact the law society - .....or was that pure coincidence? However, they've now thrown a massive spanner in the works by interpreting one word in the deed of easement we got because our driveway has to cross a section of village green. Basically, building society is about to pay out, and this solicitor is doing the usual stuff prior to the money going via their account (a totally unrequired step in this sort of mortgage but there you go) when they spotted that the solicitor who drew up the easement for reasons best known to himself inserted the word "domestic" before vehicle - which effectively prevents any commercial vehicle - so no deliveries, no tradesmen... and most disastrously right now, no builders! So they told the building society, who from being on the verge of releasing the funds are now saying that this means we cannot legally build the house as there's no right of access for building vehicles.... so they will no longer lend! Now this is resolvable, but creating an amended deed and registering it against the land with the land registry (as it was never the Parish Councils intention to do this, and frankly none of us noticed it) bill take 2 months at best, ut we are already running weeks late thanks to Buildloan faffing around for so long, and the SIPs folks want paid if they are to make our panels- or we will go to the back of the queue, ditto with the builder who is booked. So I'm down to 24 hours before the next Parish Council meeting after which there is not one for another month, and the current suggestion is that I get them to write a letter granting access to all vehicles for the purposes of construction, and pray the building society accepts that, then we look at a permanent amendment to the easement at a later date (in reality, no one would ever have objected to a delivery van or whatever in future, but now it's been flagged to the building society we are stuffed!). I can honestly say now that if we'd anticipated so much stress as we have been subjected to by office bound warriors we would never have done this. If we could walk away from it now we would as this is the last straw. We'd expected the money through last week. Unfortunately we've put all our savings into getting it this far, but it seems I have to fight someone every day just to get them to do their job, nothing more, and frankly I have little reserves left.

I know, it's weird frankly. I am beginning to suspect it's because of their low cost scheme they maybe jealously guard their time spent, and thus avoid phone calls. When I couldn't get a reply on their normal number I rang their "sales" line - because no matter how bad firms are at answering phones, oddly they can always answer their sales lines quickly I've found. Sure enough, I got straight through and when I asked if I could speak to the person who has taken on the case I was told she was out, but she'd call me. When I asked for her extension number they flatly would not give it to me. At that point I said, I realised full well this person would not ring me and sure enough, she hasn't.

I part dragged myself out using the bucket, but as it only has one it was literally a couple of inches at a time. The hire company charged me an extra £20 to clean the machine - which was completely fair enough as the machine was about 40% mud when they collected it! . No mains water on site yet so I couldn't pressure wash it first.

Well, still tearing hair out at artificial delays. The solicitor we've used is a big firm down country but have a truly bizarre way of working. Its a fixed price paid up front, and a good competitive price compared to our local solicitors - but once you've paid they will not let you speak to your solicitor! First indication things were amiss was a message from my dear friends at Buildloan/BS saying the building society had contacted the solicitor to progress things no less than 5 times and still not had a response. So I rang the solicitors to enquire, only to be told your not allowed to speak to her, she works from home and only works by email ! I actually thought we were being scammed at first, as 20 years working in the criminal justice system (and a law degree), and I've never heard of a solicitor who will not speak to clients. So I emailed her... no response. So after a couple of days I emailed and said I was going to the Law Society.... that got a response . So OK, she says she has responded to the Building Society (and since the message she had not came via Buildloan, I've no idea who is giving the correct version TBH). So one of the issues with Buildloan was the drip feeding of request for documents instead of asking for everything they needed at once .... turns out this solicitor is doing exactly the same thing. I emailed and explained the delays due to BL/BS and how thus we are weeks behind where we should be with the mortgage, yet they are doing the exact same thing. Then yesterday I get an automated out of office reply saying she's away for the rest of the month! So someone else is picking her work up apparently. So I thought I'd better give her a call and just explain that we'd given notice of our tenancy so needed quick action..... and guess what? Your not allowed to speak to her either! I've never come across this before. I can understand if you've got a nasty client, but this is their policy before you've ever had any dealings. So we are back to drip feed requests for documents which they claim the building society is asking for... only some are ones we sent in months ago. In some ways it's just as well they are a long way off as it stops me going down and shouting at them!

I had to dig out twice and in the end we put down old tin sheet to spread the weight of the caterpillar tracks to get out. It was bellying out was the issue really. First thing this morning it was snow so it was never going to be a brilliant day, but it just turned to rain. I got more done than I thought but had to give up. A shame to have to stop when the machine is hired, but I'd have just messed the whole site up if I continued. So is that still there as a garden fixture? ?

Mud, mud, glorious mud! ? . Digging came to a halt today. I got a lot of subsoil levelled out yesterday but rain very definitely stopped play today.

"It is alarming, but it does not necessarily mean people have lost money. Smart meters are essentially a 'second check' as energy suppliers keep a record of energy consumption and if there is a discrepancy, they will know." ...... presumably the same energy suppliers we hear giving little old ladies £20,000 electricity bills for a quarter year and in insisting they are correct, threatening court etc? I think we can trust the big suppliers to act sensibly in such cases about as far as we can throw them! (which means not very far)

I think for shows the House Building & Renovating shows can't be beat. At the very start of the process 3 years ago we went down to the Birmingham NEC one which was huge. We spent 2 days and were still finding stuff to look at as we left. At that point of course we were looking at absolute *everything* from our build method, heating methods, materials and so on. The seminars running the entire time were worth the entrance fee alone. (though free as we subscribed to the magazine at that time, & I've always managed to find free tickets online since) . Everything there including all the green/renewable stuff. The 2nd year a day was long enough as we'd settled a lot of things. Now we are building there's probably no point in us going, but we learned absolute masses there over 2 years and refined our plans through all the seminars/sales stands and bags and bags of brochures.

The builder says he will "fit us in" sort of thing (he's got a few guys working for him) and the SIPS people say July now for thier part. So the Buildstore/buildloan delays have meant everything's knocked back at least 3 months from what it should be and lost us some certainty over how many guys we'll have working on the build now & hence it's speed, and we will have to renew our tenancy of our temporary home (or get a caravan maybe, though my wife is not keen on that idea), it also means I'll have to hire a crane for the SIPs as the builder was going to use his machine but that will be elsewhere now. Interestingly enough Buildstore have not rang me to tell me the mortgage is approved - which makes me think perhaps the building society have spoken to them. But needless to say we are hugely relieved. Fortunately our warranty and BR people are not with Buildstore so hopefully we will soon (if not already) not have to have anything more to with them.

Well, after an awful night, the Building society rang me very first thing and said everything is fine and the issue was never in doubt at thier end ! Offer coming out this week. On hearing the issues he gave me his direct number and said "look, just deal direct with me from now". Not impressed with Buildloan!

Well, it just gets worse. We are now being asked for P60s back to 2013 ! I will say up front that we both have full employment histories, 1st class credit ratings, and not a missed payment in our entire lives, never mind such a thing as a CCJ, but it almost feels like they are looking hard to try and find something we can't possibly answer/produce. The reason I feel this way is because common sense would dictate that as the lender you would ask for all the details you want up front, as that saves a lot of your admin time - but it's been one document at a time asked for, over months now, and they get increasingly obscure as we go on (what my job in 2013 can possibly have to do with our ability to pay in 2017, or 2020 is clearly nil). The last one was I had to dig out my contract of employment for 2014 - but when I managed that, they then wanted the P60 from 2013, and we are just working our way backwards like that. Sods law I've got all my P60s from 2001 except for 2013! My suspicion is that in the manner of the old game (probably not a PC name any more) of "Chinese Whispers" something is going astray/misunderstood when passed through the filter of Buildloan/store (never mind their shockingly sitting on it all for over a month at the start) and we are now on someone's radar at the lender as somehow dodgy! As a result, today it looks like our builder has had to give up our "slot" and book someone else in. An irritation normally, but we really struggled to find a good builder willing to do the work up here for some reason (we are 22 miles from the nearest market town, but hardly the Outer Hebrides) so that could mean we've lost this year. My poor wife is in tears tonight as we are starting to wonder if we've wasted the tens of thousands of pounds spent so far. I've no doubt we can get a lender as the sums all add up and we are squeaky clean, but if no progress by the end of this week I think we'll have lost the builder for 2017. We did think we were out of the hands of the clerks etc, but obviously not, and are finally beginning to question if it's really worth the stress or if we should just sell and cut our losses now. Digger booked tomorrow so I'll have to go and do that anyway.

**Update** Took the bull by the horns and contacted the Building Society direct- wow, they could not be more different. Nice, efficient, helpful and explained to me that we are looking about midweek next week, and that I should feel free to ring them any time! So that's a weight off my shoulders. There's no reason at all we shouldn't get it, but you need to see that bit of paper before committing further money, just in case.

Well, emailed Buildloan/BS just after 6a.m before leaving the house on Tuesday (its now Thursday), just asking if there is any progress as we've heard nothing more... true to form, the agent who is overseeing/administering our job hasn't replied even to say she's got the email and is enquiring. Given how much they charge, their service is absolutely shockingly bad (remember they did not even bother to do the initial paperwork until I enquired after not hearing from them for an entire month!). Right now, I'd recommend no one to use them if at all possible as it's been nothing but bother. The only "service" I'd say we've got that we couldn't do ourselves (to the lenders satisfaction) would be the costings (though we did have a QS printout done ourselves) , and that's the only bit which took a reasonable amount of time, everything else I've had to force them to get on with. If we don't chase them up, simply nothing happens. It is adding completely unnecessary stress, especially when you consider, their job is supposed to be smoothing the way for you, not adding extra obstacles. Our builder is asking me if I can give a date as he needs to book jobs, so at this rate we could lose him ! Meanwhile, in the real world, I've got 3 days off booked next week and have hired another digger for 2 (wasn't one available on the Monday) and am going to start levelling out some of that mountain (1 of topsoil, 1 of subsoil) shown further up this page, due to it clearly being a hazard to low flying aircraft . Looking forward to that as I found it quite enjoyable using the digger last time, especially when you've moved soil by spade so have a good feel for how much physical labour even 5 minutes on a digger saves!

Yes, Silverline is definitely market stall quality stuff (though I've on or two tools from market stalls that are fine, but things like lump hammers and a ball joint splitter - nothing like a screwdriver say, which needs to be decent quality metal). Toolstation has beaten Screwfix more and more for me recently, including on branded stuff, and delivery has been fast .

We have plant pots stood on it in the greenhouse and the floor of my cold frame too. Keeps the soil that bit warmer.

My local Jewsons branch had literally insane pricing. I once bought 1 length of drain pipe for work and the price was well over £30, but we needed it there and then. I went to pick it up in the warehouse and the staff guy had his car in and was busy working on it ! He then bellowed "WHAT"? at me as I walked in with the slip to collect it! At first I thought he was joking.... he wasnt! He then deliberately dropped the pipe when I went to take it off him. Swore I'd never go back. Then on a local forum one day someone was asking about where to get some building item and I said whatever you do, don't go to Jewson unless your a millionaire.... the new manager saw it and got in touch with me and asked about my experience. He said I can promise you, come in and you will find things different - he was right. I now use them and get good prices, the staff there now are friendly and the manager himself drove out (22 miles) once with a single drain elbow we needed but wasn't in stock when I called! So I think it is very much down to the local branch manager.

Can't tell you how pleased I am to see this post - I thought it was just us! We've been going in circles over just £500 moved from our savings account to our current account 4 months ago which from the level of interest they've taken in it, apparently seems to be making them convinced I am the recipient of Pablo Escobar's millions! After 3 explanations (Building society savings account has no card or cheque book, and they aren't part of the CHAPS network, so withdraw cash from that account (shown in building society account book), walk across the road and pay into bank current account, 5 minutes later tops, allowing us to use card payment to buy some building bits and bobs). That wasn't enough they say, (Buildstore) and I've had to break it down into an almost child friendly explanation. It's been a struggle to make that explanation any simpler, actually, I mean what more can you say?.... but I've had to!) The best one though was a friend who was given land by her parents - for whatever reason/circumstances, they "sold" it to her for £1 ... and she was still asked to explain where the money to buy the land came form ... and in the end had to actually classify the £1 as "savings" to satisfy them!

Cheers. No, I don't think it needed to be double skin either, but that's what went in on the plans and TBH I never gave it a thought until I came to buy the blocks - and then thought "why"? I did mention to the architect that I may actually use it as a workshop and possibly partition part off as a deer larder, so perhaps he was thinking I'd want to insulate it so went with a cavity.

Our daughter helping build the garage - she picked it up faster than I did.

Well, thanks to Buildloan (the mortgage arm of Buildstore) hanging on to everything for at least a month before submitting it, everything is now at a standstill house build wise. I'm told everything is now with the mortgage provider, but you know, I've really lost all confidence in Buildloan/Builstore (hereafter BS - which by happy coincidence matches nicely with an American term!) so we don't really know. I'm told by BS that the lenders now do a due diligence check where someone separate goes over the whole application from scratch again, which makes sense, and that this is happening now. But it's hard not knowing if we'll hear in 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or several months (just heard from someone who it took 8 months for from applying direct to their lender! - and that's without BS in between them to slow things up even further). I'm looking forward to when we can just deal direct with the lender. Meantime I'm starting to build the garage and I've a retaining wall to do as well, so there is plenty to be physically doing at weekends (and hopefully a couple of hours on weeknights after work as daylight lengthens). I'm quite enjoying building the garage, (though it will be with some trepidation when I have to get the BR guy to check my work at the DPC stage as I've never laid blocks or bricks before, but am following the rules and doing my best - thank goodness for YouTube and Jon Collinsons excellent book on Brickwork) as it feels like doing something "proper" at last (rather than all this sort of frustrating thing and the regiments of people we've had to pay handsomely over a year for simply shuffling bits of paper round so far or granting their gracious permission, for example, to let us alter the National Parks s106 agreement to allow our daughter to inherit our house (yes, really, the mandatory agreement the National Park forces you to agree to does not allow inheritance as a disposal of the house!... unless you pay their solicitor £200 to "allow" it, you'd be signing that right away! ). So there is definitely something satisfying in this sort of labour. "Clarty boots"

Along with the house, our architect designed a standalone two skin blockwork garage with 55mm cavity (to be covered in planking when finished as we are in an area where everything has to be natural stone otherwise, so expensive) with a beam and block and slab floor. I'm just starting to build it, and am wondering if I'm required to insulate it? Common sense would say not, but then this is the UK, so that means nothing. I could ask our BR guy of course, but in my experience of self build to date, absolutely any question you ask of anyone in authority is always answered simply by whatever will cost you the most if they have an option of answers. So do I have to insulate an unheated building under the regs?