Omnibuswoman

New flats to be demolished and rebuilt due to safety fears https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61399641

The basic rule is that stamp duty on a second property is the higher rate. I don’t believe HMRC distinguishes between the primary property being BTL or lived in. The rule is: single property owned = lower rate, add another property = higher rate. If you sold your BTL within a certain period of time (I don’t know the exact duration but it is less than 2 years I think) then you can revert to the lower rate on the second property.

Thanks peeps. I’ll have a chat with HWMBO about leaving the ceiling as-is and fitting low profile lights instead. Looking at the extra cost of plasterboard etc it seems wasteful to make it any fancier than it needs to be, especially with prices going the way they are. I can’t see anything wrong with the idea of painting the rafters and making a feature out of them. ☺️

Just returning to this topic after several weeks of mulling it over… The first thing that occurred to me is that the building will not be heated, so in theory there will be no warm air to condense on the underside of the roof ply… in which case, is it worth insulating at all (like a standard shed)… We could just fit plasterboard to the underside of the joists (having first drilled a 50mm hole through each noggin to allow side to side airflow from vented soffits). In this case, it would be neither a warm roof nor a cold roof, but just a ‘same temperature as room’ roof. Am I missing something obvious??! m

Hi peeps, further advice needed on workshop build, this time on the roof insulation. We’ve built a cold roof design - EDPM on top, 18mm marine ply, joists/noggins. No ceiling finish up yet. We’re planning to put on a plasterboard ceiling with recessed LED lights, but need to work out the best way to insulate between the plasterboard and the ply. Do I need to leave a ventilation gap between the ply roof and the insulation? Then another gap between that and the ceiling? How will the electric cables through the joists affect any insulation decision? Might insulated plasterboard be a better option? All suggestions most welcome! Thanks! M

ahhh the good old days when you could assault and insult children eh? 😆

Maybe it was my mum he was interested in 🤣

Szivesen!

Hungary has a relatively small pot of common names, so it is common to have people with the same name in a group of friends. It makes me wonder what taking the register is like in school 😂 And they have ‘name day’ on which your name is celebrated like a birthday. Today is Gábor and Karina day. I speak basic Hungarian, although have forgotten a great deal of it now. It is quite a challenging one to speak well. I’ve never progressed beyond sounding like a toddler 🤣

Nagyon kemény munka azt Magyars!!

i used to work in a drug rehab unit. One of my clients was an ex dustbin man (a job that fitted nicely around his addiction apparently). I remember him speaking about the amount of money they would get at Xmas from different businesses and householders. Thousands of pounds in tips. I was quite shocked that they would get tips for doing what they’re paid for! But as you say, this was more a financial recognition for looking the other way when a mattress or other waste was taken away unofficially.

I did wonder that too! I’m pretty friendly and happy to pass the time of day for a few mins. If I were a driver I’d want the excuse to have a stretch and a change of scenery for a moment. But my instinct was telling me that it was more than that, and then my mum mentioned when he left that she thought he had been waiting for a tip. That’s what I had thought but hadn’t wanted to say.

Oh that’s great. I thought I might be committing some awful faux pas of builders’ etiquette!! The one that hacked me off was the equipment hire chap who dropped off the genie lifting gear at the bottom of the drive, leaving us to haul it almost 100m up an uneven incline unaided, and still seemed to be expecting something. He was the one who told me repeatedly about the generosity of his other customers. IMHO he’s already being paid to do the thing he just did, and was uncomfortable that I couldn’t get rid of him.

I’ve noticed that delivery drivers tend to want to hang around for a “chat” after delivering goods - one even stopped for 10 mins to wax lyrical about how generous one of his customers had been giving him a case of beer… It occurred to me that I have no idea whether or how much to tip a delivery driver. I am not someone who keeps cash or beers lying around, so I need to know whether to stockpile a stash of something to tip with. Any thoughts?? Thanks! Morgan

I can't imagine doing without a freezer, Tea. We use ours every day. We were planning to have two in the new house!