newhome

PM me too please.

Sadly not. No extensions are VAT reclaimable.

That’s great news @lizzie. Fingers crossed the new guy can sort out the UFH too!

Given where HMRC are going with refusing VAT claims currently there might need to be some caution with this approach, although that said they can hardly argue that you’re only finishing off if half the house is yet to be built!

No way would I consider this personally. Firstly the house would be building up a CGT liability for the new owner, secondly the new owner could evict me from my own home or sell it without my permission, thirdly if there was a divorce or bankruptcy I may lose my home, and fourthly this may count as a ‘gift with reservation of benefit’ which means that it is treated the same way as if the house had remained in the original owner’s estate so IHT and care home fees will still apply. I’m sorry to say that I have seen a family ripped apart by this when it sounded like a great thing to do at the start.

I know it’s not what you planned but is there a way that you can live in the house for a couple of years and see how much you can pay off the mortgage or save? You say that you can afford a £630k mortgage so on that basis you must be up for paying a fairly hefty mortgage payment so can surely stay paying the existing mortgage for a while whilst your repayments are at ‘normal’ interest rates in order to save. Be aware that if you move to a non standard mortgage product the interest rate and thus repayments are likely to be much higher so don’t base affordability on high street mortgage rates. Are you living there now or elsewhere? If you’re not living there you will be building up a capital gains tax liability from the date of the purchase.

She’s probably like me. I have 3 freezers and they’re always full. If I had a 4th freezer that would be full too ?

£5 off an Amazon spend of £25 today only. All items must be sold directly from Amazon and not from one of its partners.

Is that criteria set by the wife? Does that make it body sized? ?

One of my fridge freezers is annoyingly noisy off and on makes a sort of buzzing noise. It still works though so I haven’t done anything about it. Having looked it up I think it’s probably the compressor but given that it’s not something I can fix I will just wait for it to die and get a new one. Assume it won’t burst into flames or anything?

I understood that too from O level German. Quite remarkably because I haven’t spoken a word of German since! My German teacher (who was Dutch and seemed to spend most of the lessons talking about his time in WW2) used to say ach du liebe zeit a lot too lol.

Where do you leave it if not in the garage? I have mine in the garage. Thankfully hasn’t really been that cold this year.

A likely story! ? ? I’m feeling quite pleased that I didn’t get a ‘never again’ message next to my TS given curry and a bunch of frustration was involved lol ?

Yep! My first 2 houses had bathrooms that were a vision in avocado. Lovely ?

Looking great @vivienz. Love the 'never again' photo

Welcome to the forum

Definitely don’t go anywhere near any PP for a holiday let before you bag the vat reclaim! And if HMRC, it’s a home office.

Ah yes you may be right. I remember having CFLs years ago and indeed they took a long time to get bright. Maybe the much older LEDs were dimmer still? Not sure, I just remember not liking the cost at the time. £10 each springs to mind and more for dimmable ones, and there must be 120+ downlighters here so it seemed better to wait for them to reduce in price which clearly they have significantly.

When we put the downlighters in here a good few years ago LEDs were eye wateringly expensive and weren’t as good as they are now. The cheaper ones (still mega bucks at the time) seemed to take ages to get bright enough, so you could go to have a pee and the bathroom would still be relatively dark by the time you had finished. Despite this the OH still wanted them but the regs the house was built under said that we didn’t need LEDs so I overruled him and all the internal downlighters started off with halogen lamps fitted. Over the years as the halogen ones have blown I have replaced them with LEDs. I would say they’ve been pretty reliable. I tend to keep a couple of boxes of 10 here, bought when they are on offer, and a box of 10 has always been under a tenner. I haven’t bothered replacing all the halogens in one go as there are loads of them and I actually don’t keep any of the downlighters on for very long. I have a set of 5 outside and they’ve been in for about 7 years and have never failed.

No one can say for certain what HMRC will allow but I don't see why that wouldn't be reclaimable as driveways certainly are and it doesn't say what construction method you need to use. There are some eyewateringly expensive methods used in hard landscaping so I don't know why matting would be excluded.

So very sorry Moira. Exactly the scenario I found myself in. Like me you will find the strength to finish it alone I'm sure xx

Really pleased for you Moira.

My building warrant is earlier regs but we were told we could have the accessible entrance either at the front or back door but it was more convenient to fit it at the front door. I never actually use the front entrance in truth and only open it when people arrive at the door as it's easier to get to the car from the back door.

You can get the VAT back on the hard landscaping whether it's in the PP or not. It's in VAT Notice 708 as 'work closely connected to the construction of the building' so @nod you may wish to consider buying the materials for this work and storing them so that you can claim the VAT back even if you aren't in a position to complete the work just now.

Similar to my hubby. Fit, healthy, in the middle of a self build, never been sick apart from having crap knees. Went to the doc with a pain in his side that he thought was due to climbing up and down the scaffold tower. Diagnosed with terminal cancer. Life changes in an instant. Carpe diem.