Omnibuswoman

Thank you both, much appreciated. @ToughButterCup is it this place

We are looking at ordering 26 rolls of Tescon Profil tape from Daemstoff in Germany (E26.00 v £31.80 here) - has anyone made an order from Germany since January 2021, and if so do you know what rate of Customs Duty applies? I know that they add VAT en route, which we can reclaim, but not sure how the customs charges affect the overall cost, and it seems not to be possible to find out from HMRC's website. Danke!

Coming along beautifully! How is Mrs Botus doing? If you have any spare spoil that you are looking to rehome, we are looking for some to raise our ground levels around the house....

I repaired our acrylic bath a few weeks ago using an epoxy kit that I bought online for about £30, after it was cracked and chipped in several places by the glass shower screen falling into it. The repairs are almost invisible, and the bath seems to be absolutely fine. Top tip is to make a v shaped groove along the crack to better allow the epoxy into it. I'm now absolutely up for picking up a fancy looking but massively reduced price bath in need of repair, for our new house. I used one from www.bathtubrepair.co.uk (other brands are available!)

Just to be clear that there are two different levies being discussed here: SDLT and CIL. Very different rules apply. HMRC’s definition of a residential plot (which would potentially attract a higher rate of tax) is not whether or not it has a building on it at the point of sale. It is whether the land itself is ‘residential’. So, for instance, if I took part of my garden and sold it off as a building plot, it would most likely be seen by HMRC as residential. A plot that has previously had a house on it may well be seen by HMRC as ‘residential’ for SDLT purposes, even if the house has been knocked down. In my case, the plot we bought had been a field designated as ‘agricultural’ (prior to planning permission being obtained). Our build converted the land to residential, but at the point that we bought it, and SDLT became due, it was not yet ‘residential’. You would be well advised to seek professional advice, or to ask HMRC for advice on the question about whether or not your particular plot might attract the residential or the non-residential rate of SDLT. As for CIL, which is essentially an infrastructure development fee, I’m not sufficiently genned up on that to say anything specific. What I do know from reading the forum is that it would be sensible to ask the Council in writing for their opinion, as you may want to rely on that later on.

Yes, I’ll contact them and ask if their response to my letter has been lost in the post. And if it hasn’t, will ask if their decision maker would kindly like to set out their reasons for accepting our request. When I get a reply, I will share it here.

Thanks Joe90. I have the advantage of having previously been an independent adjudicator on complaints that had been through HMRC’s own complaints process, checking the exercising of their discretion and their recognition of their own maladministration. I’m sure this helped me in constructing the arguments!

When we purchased our plot in early 2020, I decided to do the conveyancing myself (as I'm basically a tight-arse). I didn't want to pay a solicitor to take months to do something I could easily do myself. Having completed that successfully, the purchase was finalised, and I then filled in the SDLT form and sent off a cheque for the tax that I believed was due. At that point, being aware that this was a second property, I calculated that we owed SDLT at the higher rate, so £5,000 on a plot purchased for £150,000. Skip forward to September 2022, perusing on Buildhub I discover that a building plot is not necessarily a residential property for the purposes of tax. News to me! I went back to HMRC's website, and learned that if the plot was non-residential, then the tax I owed would have been £0 (as the threshold starts at £150,001). As the plot we bought had previously been an agricultural field, prior to the vendor having obtained planning consent, then it was indeed non-residential for tax purposes. I contacted HMRC's helpline to discuss, and the chap I spoke to kindly explained that I could write in and ask them to repay me. I'm not sure whether he was aware or not, but at that point there was actually 0% chance of HMRC repaying us. The rules said that I had only 12 months from the date of completion (June 2020) to revise my SLDT submission. After that, tough luck. Any incorrectly paid tax would not be repaid. HMRC replied to my first letter, rejecting my request on the grounds that I had not quoted the piece of law I was relying on to ask for it. I then spent an entire weekend researching caselaw on situations such as mine. What an exercise in disappointment that was, to put it mildly. I read every single published judgement on SDLT cases for the previous 5 years, as well as the relevant regulations themselves, and concluded that there was simply no basis for me to persuade HMRC to repay us. I was crestfallen, and had to admit to HWMBO that I had gifted £5k to the Treasury out of my own ignorance, and my unwillingness to pay legal fees. Still, I decided that it was worth one final try, and I sat down in January to write the mother of all letters to try to persuade HMRC to repay us. I explained my mistake, cited the regulations, and asked if they could exercise discretion to allow a late amendment to the SDLT1 form on the grounds that they had themselves checked the form at the time and had not identified my error, despite there having been enough information on the form for them to have reasonably suspected that the property was not residential. I said that if they would not do that, would they please consider opening an enforcement case against us so that they could review whether we had paid the right amount of tax, and calculate for themselves what we owed (which was the only legal route that would allow them to revise the SLDT1 form beyond the time limit). Then I went for the heartstrings, saying that we really couldn't afford to gift this money to the Treasury, and if they could please see their way to reimburse us, we would be eternally grateful. A couple of weeks ago HWMBO found a credit in his bank account of £5089.00 with a reference of 'HMRC SDLT'. They had not only repaid us, but added interest for the time they had had the money. They haven't written to us to say why they decided to do this, so I've no idea which part of the letter was effective, but it feels churlish to question it. A very salutary lesson in there for me. And perhaps for some of you too.

You are likely to need the assistance of a solicitor well versed in property and tax law for this. If a mistake is made and you over or underpay tax, getting it put right can be costly.

Thanks for the figures - that's a very helpful starting point for when we speak to Dan about him meeting some of the exess cost. Yes, we are 240 miles away, so are only visiting once a month on average for a long weekend. We were meant to go down this evening for a few days, but we both have covid so have had to postpone the visit.

No, we're not liable - the site is insured by the builder, as per our contract, so it's his liability if anything is stolen from site.

It's our workshop - we built it prior to the build commencing for welfare facilities (it has a tiny kitchen and a loo), and to store materials and tools.

We were offered fixed price, but at 10-15% more than the estimate so that he wouldn't lose out in the event of unexpected costs etc. It was a difficult decision, but with our finite resources, the cost of things spiralling, and the fall in the value of the investments that we were cashing in to fund the build, we just couldn't afford to find the extra money. We don't distrust Dan and his intentions - he put a great deal of work into the estimate, and his office manager/finance person is tracking it carefully - we just worry that his guys on site are a bit lazy, and spending too much time wandering around smoking/visiting the workshop. Unfortunately, for complicated reasons that I won't get into, we have had to call an end to the work once the outside is complete. So they only have renderboard, windows and doors, and rendering left to go before the work stops. So the rest of the build will be direct subcontracting, when funds allow, with me on site supervising. This will bring its own set of challenges, mostly with me having to learn enough to be able to effectively oversee/quality control that work. There's also the whole gender thing to contend with - some men not liking having a woman question them or oversee their work - which brings its own set of complications.

I find it quite efficient, and absolutely love driving it. We've the van version so enormous open space in the back for stuff. Around town we only use battery. We get approximately 30 miles on one charge, which costs us about £2.30 when charging on the street via one of our local lamp post sockets (24p per kWh). Plus we get the bonus of being exempt from ULEZ charges. On the motorway it's very efficient for a 2 tonne vehicle - It uses around 2/3 of a tank to get down to our plot, but the tank is quite small and only costs between £40 and £50 to fill it up at current prices. And that is with the back full of crap usually. I definitely would recommend. On the panel issue, I will have another chat with our solar guy as we haven't discussed optimisers. I wasn't anticipating much problem with shading, but will revisit that...

We're not on fixed rates - it is a daily rate. But we have a very detailed quote from Dan which breaks down every task by the estimated cost of labour and materials, and we monitor that against the actual charges that are invoiced. So we are able to see if something has come in over or under the estimate, and then can see whether it was materials cost or labour cost that caused that. It's as close as we will get to a fixed price contract. If labour causes an overspend, then we can have that conversation with Dan about idleness.

I've enjoyed reading the various reactions, and understand the range of views. We've called a meeting with Dan, and his office manager/finance person, for later this week to discuss exactly how the costs incurred on this stage compare to the very detailed quote he gave us - the costs are being tracked against the original quote, which was the 'target price' set out in the contract - so that we can see if labour costs are coming in higher than expected. HWMBO said that if the costs being incurred are in line with the quote, then he doesn't favour kicking off about idling about on site. I agree that after having examined the original quote very thoroughly indeed, line by line, we did feel that it was representative of an acceptable pace of work and therefore if they are on track with that we should accept that there isn't a significant degree of piss taking going on. However, the heater is now off, and staying off. When they returned to site this morning, I heard one of them comment that the workshop was colder inside than the outside temperature. Perhaps that will encourage them to hang out in there less. They are battening the outside of the house at the moment, ready for the renderboard to go up. I wonder if anyone has a view on how long it should take three men to batten the outside of a house that is 230m2? It's a simple rectangle - 11m by 8.7m. They've been at it for 5 whole days now, and I'm still wondering if they should have finished by now... The electricity bill is the subject of a separate email in which we very strongly made the point about how shocking and upsetting it was to see use of electricity at 58kWh per day (for the 70 working days on site that the bill covered), and that this demonstrated a failure to exercise proper stewardship of our resources. We have asked him to pay towards the bill, and will see what he comes back with about that. @Jilly we also made the point that this represented almost 100% of our anticipated annual electricity use for our entire house, AND that given that this is meant to be an environmentally conscious build of a low energy house, it is especially galling to see such shocking energy waste. I suspect he will offer us something, as this is an important project for him. Very much appreciate all of your kind and thoughful replies. Here is a picture of our house, for your enjoyment, with Milo the whippet for scale M

You're right, I need to get a grip and just concentrate on being more effective. To be fair to me, I'm not feeling great today and have just tested positive for covid, so I shall use that to explain/apologise for being so annoyed this morning and will speak to him properly and fairly tomorrow. It's important to keep the two things separate - the irritation about the bill, and my concerns about his lack of site/employee management.

We didn't take any advice on this - we pushed him to give us a contract, so he went online and got this one. I don't think he was trying to pull a fast one on us or anything. I went through it with a fine-toothed comb and was satisfied that it set out the various responsibilities clearly, and had an arbitration/mediation element in case we fell out. If we had wanted a fixed cost project his quote would have been 10-15% higher, so we accepted the target price model. We receive an updated spreadsheet fortnightly showing the breakdown of the latest invoiced costs against the predicted budget/quote. I think what bothers me most is that he is rarely on site, and the builders who are (whilst clearly skilled builders) are disrespectful about him. He evidently has no authority or control over them, and no clear expectations as to what they ought to be achieving in what timescale. When asked, he couldn't articulate what he expected, beyond saying that he trusted them. I suspect that trusting them is his preferred alternative to managing them, which may be beyond his skills. And yet this is what I believe we are paying him for.

@Kelvin We took the path of entrusting this responsibility to Dan, the building company owner/main contractor, and are paying him for that role. Our site is 240 miles from here, and I simply cannot be there, and do my day job, hence going with a main contractor. I now somewhat regret that I have not been holding Dan to account more stringently and more often - although doing so without any real knowledge of what I might reasonably expect is challenging. This is an area where he knows more than I do, and to some degree we have had to take it on trust that he is directing the work properly. I'm still not in a position to go and make myself present on site, but I do think we need to meet with Dan to find out the timescales for the remaining external works (battening, cement boarding, rendering, fitting windows and doors) so that we can at least hold his feet to the fire a bit more. He is excellent at building houses, but rubbish (it seems) at managing his employees.

I would say a qualified yes to that - trusting the team is the issue here. The bill, which is not a small amount given the various constraints on our finances well set out by others considering building in the current climate, is a red flag for me as to whether they can be trusted. As ToughButtercup says, they don't give a crap because they're not footing the bill. I don't behave like that at work, and I don't expect others to either.

@ETC copy of the contract attached. The site is the responsibility of the contractor, but we are responsible for providing water, electricity and wifi. copy of contract in word.docx

They're on a day rate unfortunately, and I profoundly lack confidence in the boss's oversight - the last time we had an issue, after I had spent two days on site and found very little seeming to be happening, I asked Dan about his expectations around work for that particular week. He just didn't have an answer for us - he said that he didn't really know because 'it depends on what happens' and that he 'trusts' the guys to be working hard enough. I think he has no governance over their work, and they don't respect either him or us. I've asked him not to return them to site until we have met to discuss. As Steamy Tea says, it's very risky to be seen to question their work ethic in a place like this. We're the grockles from up country, and I suspect there is some degree of feeling that we deserve, or at least can afford, to pay them to do as little as they wish. We don't want to fall out with Dan - he is knowledgeable about Passive House building and really cares about his work - but he is just not supervising his team, and this is probably just a sort of final straw for me around lack of stewardship of our precious resources.

It just says that we will ensure that there is water and electricity on site for the build.

Having found that Octopus can install a SMETS2 3 phase meter for us, in mid Feb we gave British Gas notice along with a meter reading. Imagine the shock when we received a bill for £1,500 (for electricity use since 3rd November when the work started). The builders have been running an electric heater in the workshop/facilities area pretty much 24/7 since early on in the build. Initially this was to dry their wet work clothes overnight (and as this is Cornwall there was quite some rain in Nov and Dec). However it seems that they have just enjoyed having a cosy little place to sit and have utterly disregarded any thought of the cost to us of this. I am really annoyed and upset at this shocking consumption (just over 4020 kwh in 14 weeks), minus weekends and about three weeks of time off site. I'm not sure what to ask our builder to do to put things right. Should we be asking him to foot a portion of the bill? Or should we just stump up for the bill and let it slide, whilst carrying the resentment? I think for me this fits into a wider concern about the workmen's work ethic - the fact that they appear (on our security cameras) to be in and out of the workshop all of the time (probably because it's so flipping warm and comfortable). I regret not having been present on site more, and that the company owner, Dan, has basically left them to their own devices. I lack confidence as to whether we have achieved value for money from their work, and these feelings are all playing into my anger and unhapiness about the electricity bill. Any advice about what to do would be very welcome...