Ferdinand

HOping to comment on this later. But at least one Grand Designs person turned it into a career .. the chap who rebuilt his thatched cottage after a fire with the huge cathedral type window on the back became a project manager for small build projects. Outside there are many people who do serial small builds but they tend to have cone from a specialism eg builder and so are really mini-developers. One of my plumbers :-) is trying to get into building as well as btl, but is struggling for plot sourcing nouse and capital. F

This is similar in some respecks to the conversation we were having about fees for written confirmation of fulfilment of Discharge of Planning Conditions a few weeks ago. Here - potentially - be dragons. Here:

It seems a strange distinction between householder and developer. By definition you cannot get to pre-app advice until you at least have some idea, and some things can't be discussed in writing by their nature. SO the way to do it could be to have the conversation about appearance and all the other stuff first as a renovation, and then keep from mentioning the flattening until the end, and / or framing the conversation as you would for Planning Aid in terms of policy and principles not a specific site. But since I get charged full whack for everything regardless, I am not sure I want to encourage that :-). But then my local council still operates a Duty Planner system ! To clarify you could phone up as Mr Smith and ask them where the lines are drawn.

I refuse to believe that this is only 2 years old. I am unanimous in that. On inserting the embrace behind the pipes and the mesh, my plumber normally does the stuff at the back first. Perhaps I am being obtuse. And I am wondering whether @Onoff's Gollum avatar for the bathroom project is inspired by the 78 years that Gollum waited to catch Baggins and the recover his Precious.

mediator = very lucrative if you are trained and have the contacts. For commercial mediators / facilitators you could get your £280 per hour. Maybe

I think you probably want a recording when the War and Peace document is being explained in all its gory glory, for future reference when you are unclear on something in 2 or 6 years time. And probably at some point to confirm your restrictions in writing. What about "Network Rail workers will only be allowed in chicken suits"?

THank you for a clear post with full information. WOuld you care to do an introduction over on the Introduce Yourself sub-forum ... it is always good to have ? I think this probably depends mainly on how much your neighbours value their extra 300mm vs the potential delay. Your Council will tell you how long it would take depending on what is involved permissions-wise etc, as I assume your neighbours have PP to go that close to the boundary. Perhaps it could go through as a minor change? Technically I see no reason why the two have to be built together, as you could tie into the party wall afterwards (leave bricks sticking out or sockets)? But in that case watertight agreements will be crucial and you need to know you will be supported, and there are a few risks such as if yours does not get PP. Personally I think I would want my PP Application in with a neighbour letter of support before they start building. IF they have to change their PP that should give you more time. If you build later, then I think the key to risk management will be to build as quickly as is humanly possible after theirs. I think that you will need to accept certain constraints to join the two together. Roof profile at the boundary sounds like one of these to me. THe foundation are surely best built together if you so need? I am not sure whether sticking a bit of extra foundations on the side is a major Planning Sin; I don't see it, myself. I would build the full strip foundations and cover it up if I want to keep it quiet. Alternatively if you wanted you could temporarily call it something that does not need planing permission, such as a patio base, that happens to be built to extension standards. THat would need professional advice; my personal opinion is that it might work as a defence. One issue is that you may need to decide how you will both be managing a 300mm wide gap, when it gets full of gunk in a few years. I hate gaps that I cannot get down myself, and 4-5m is a very long pole. Ferdinand

Found it F

MY practice for solicitors now is that I go for long established local firms of perhaps 2-3 offices and a small number of principals and up to a few 10s of staff, rather than regionals with a couple of hundred staff and prestige offices who want to believe they are on a par with the Magic Circle, and charge accordingly. Really that comes down to firms small enough that they still all know each other and do not have umpteen overheads and employ a pot plant service to keep the office green. I try and find the appropriate experienced principal. And I have spent quite a lot with solicitors in the last few years because we sold a field to a big developer and the contract was huuuuuuge, with added elephant traps. If you have somebody expensive (even though you will get estra support time per billed hour) then perhaps @lizzie could advise how to manage costs? The other route to go might be to source your own solicitor eg from pertinent legal bloggers, though it has perhaps gone past that point. My thought would be a tight brief and very regular verbal updates, and fixed prices for sub packages if they can do it - all probably confirmed from your side by email so you write the record. Unless you earn more than £280 an hour yourself so can make a profit on it, but that would require you to work as an Interim Director or BBC football pundit. Or lawyer . (*) Ferdinand (*) Felt the Planning Officers deserved a break.

NEtwork Rail arsecovering and/or red herring. 1 - The doc applies that statement to Principal Contractors. Are you a Principal Contractor to Network Rail? Yes or No ? 2 - They have published it unprotected on the Internet. I think you can assume they are happy for people to read it. 3 - They have published it on their own website. It would be an interesting world where you cannot refer to material on an organisation's own website when talking to them. You should be fine. F

I rather suspect it may be for a senior solicitor, but it may be towards the top end of the band. Ouch. I am generally staying out of this because it is Scottish Property Law, which is beyond my ken, however just in case it is useful 1 - Your first set of photos here seems to include a clause where you can tell them which route to take over your land. If the bit they are parking on belongs to you or your neighbour and that applies, then you have that right. 2 - If you have a Right of Way to your garage, and parking is obstructing it, then you potentially have comeback. In English law the terms used would be things like "substantive interference" and similar. Down here you could stop on a RoW to unload and block it for a reasonable time, but not to sit in your car and eat your lunch. 3 - Have you considered a video camera discreetly trained in that direction for evidence - just in case? People on BH can recommend "site security" cameras which can be monitored remotely. The only issue would be power. I feel your pain on expensive solicitors with good reputations. Ours delayed the sale of our last house by 2 months by misfiling our deeds then saying they could not find them, so we went most of the way through the "possessory title" process, and then they found them again. Quite how you misfile a pile of papers about a foot thick with vellum (I think) and handwritten copperplate going back to 1800 or so is one of the irreducible mysteries of the universe. Ferdinand

Several weeks to go yet. I am really horribly out of date. @Visti Yes .. I looked for the Accord estate and found the hole in the range where it isn't.

Time for a brief update. This is not going to an @Onoff thread, but it is likely to rabbit on for a couple of weeks whilst I educate myself about buying cars in 2018. The last one I bought from a dealer was a couple of decades ago. And I'll enjoy the test drives. A couple more have come onto the list, and I had a couple of test drives over the weekend. - VW Passat GTE (phev plugin) is one that I had not noticed previously. Big enough, and huge discounts available of 27-28% for cash or Personal Contract Purchase. Highyl dependent on driving profile. 1600kg towing. - VW Passat Alltrack 4Matic are available on quite special offer at present. £3000 down and £250 ish a month for 24 months 10k miles a year. 45mpg not 50mpg. - Mistubishi Outlander phev seem to be available at discounts of 30%+ off the new price. Which is not exciting for secondhand values in a couple of years - also the VW GTE. Might need to look at recent secondhand too. Suspect the Outlander this does not meet my 2m load deck criterion. 1500kg towing. Test drives. - Skoda Superb very top of the range - "Laurin & Klement". 190 bhp or so. Big inside and comfortable. Hard to even get slight front wheel scrabble without trying. They very kindly gave me the keys and said "come back when you are done". Impressed. - Mercedes E-Class 220D Estate. 190 bhp or so again. *Very* nice place to be, and very refined. The comment above on RWD and snow is right. It struggled with packed snow on this hill, ut to be fair was OK with a very feather-foot. Would need All Season tyres at least, and ideally 4WD. GLS Shooting Break looks really nice, but massively outside budget and practicality. I think I'll need a speed limiter. It would be very easy to drift up to banning speeds on a motorway without noticing. Thank-you for all the previous comments. Ferdinand

I would have thought you could hire a suitable scaffold tower for about £70 for a week.

@newhome I wonder if it might be a good idea if possible to let this dog lie sleeping until you have a normal insurance policy with a legal cover option? Sod's Law says it isn't possible. Are there possible options through contacting the local council re: Nuisance etc. ? F

Don't worry - I am just throwing some ideas about :-). I suffer from washer vibration noises during the spin cycle even though it is in the utility behind a door. Not intending to sound abrupt. Apologies if so. I always feel that it is better to stick my neck out whilst things are still on paper (said the giraffe). We comment and In the end you are best placed to choose the best ideas for you.

I quite like this one, with the precast concrete. I am not sure what the plastic pipe is for however, and whether they are good wines.

Sorry .. and the overall dimensions. I am thinking that it looks quite conventional and there may be quite a lot of potential for space saving and simplification. Three thoughts. 1 Your plumbing is very spread out. Put them more of less above each other? 2 That 1st floor bathroom could become 2 ensuites were you so inclined. 3 You can gain a square meter as @ProDave says, by moving the loo partly under the stair run. Dave said move it whereas I wonder about reversing the staircase which would give you either a squared off living area, or a closet by the front door which could be a coat store, or could take a washing machine and dishwasher in tandem to get them out of the kitchen which would be better noise and space wise. Ferdinand

Can we see the upstairs plan?

Welcome back.

I like the look, but am never convinced by those compartments that stack one bottle on another as it means a You are committed to buying crates of the same wine, which can be fine but that pre-guesses how many types of similar you will have, or b You face the 100% probability that the one you want is at the bottom. @Alexphd1 will you be temperature controlling it? Ferdinand

This from @vivienz' early days may also be of interest. The key thing is to get as far as possible on a level with your contractors and architect understanding wise as far as possible. The way to do that is to give yourself the time to learn, and to understand what you actually need.

Read this thread about @Visti's cost control modelling, that we all pitched in on:

I think that is quite a good scoping study to give a sanity check on the possibility of a project. Clearly they know the Council and the Locality. There is much work to be done after receiving such a document, and the creation of specific proposals plus exploration of more technical constraints, but it is a good start at identifying site and planning policy questions. IMO decent value, although the sort of thing some on here would be do ourselves. If I couldn't do an initial assessment myself or had too much on I would pay them that much quite happily. I think that a brief with specific questions and areas of interest may extract even more value. The only obvious mistake at a quick scan is the suggestion that Trees in Conservation Areas have the same protection as a TPO .. in fact the TPO process to do things to a tree is a free Planning Application needing specific approval ( with an exception of dead, decaying, dangerous or diseased) whilst Conservation Area tree work is give notice and proceed if the Council do not react. But to be fair to them they err on the side of caution wrt to CA trees, which is the right side to be. Ferdinand

Yep. Congratulations,