>>6498
I don't think you'll get much joy in asking them to renege on their legal obligations.

>>6499 You might be right. I've been doing my research and I think we're probably a bit stuck. I would say that as a first time buyer, the estate agent should have made me aware of the risks involving a repo house. Basically the only thing I was told was that it would mean there was no onward chain.

Going to give solicitor a call in the morning and see if they can give me any assurances regarding protection for any potential lost fees if I decide to proceed and get outbid.

>>6500

Pretty disgusting way to behave to be honest.

I'd be ringing them regardless to say that you're appalled that such a key piece of information was to be left out.

Poorlad here; erm... What's so bad about repo properties? Are the previous owners haunting it?

Also, £140 000 sounds cheap. Properties that cost that much still exist in England? I'm surprised.

>>6502

It's cheap up north.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58603778.html

>>6502
They're not bad as such, but they're just Property Buying: Hard Mode. A lot of repos get sold at auction, and at a property auction your bid is binding. No fannying around after the fact trying to find a mortgage - if you win you need to come up with the purchase price in full in short order. Whichever route it comes down, a repo typically will not have been recently lived in so may require some work. Finally, whereas a conventional sale will take the property off the market and deem it "sold, subject to contract", a repo will typically stay on the market, with an open invitation for higher bids. The market for repos has a lot of players who know what they're doing, so if you manage to snag an absolute bargain then someone may well spot the notice of offer, realise that you've got a great deal and jump in with a higher offer. Typically the people that deal in repos buy them either to flip or to let out, and tend to be in a position to bear the risk of wasted costs, whereas the OP suggests that he decidedly isn't in such a position.

>>6503
Would the disparity between house price of the north and south change if England were better connected by trains?

>>6505

Probably not. Good rail links tend to exacerbate inequality, because it allows the dominant city to grow even more. Tokyo is the extreme example, but many other major cities fall into the same trap. High speed rail expands the commuter belt of the dominant city, but the subsequent growth makes property in that city even more desirable. Successful cities have a strong virtuous circle - the good jobs are there because the talented people are there because the good jobs are there. Improving the Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds corridor will help a bit, but not much.

What you really need is a comprehensive economic plan to develop second-tier cities. Germany has done this very successfully; of the ten wealthiest metropolitan areas in Europe, four are in Germany. The 2011 Localism Act was a good step forward, but there just isn't enough investment. We get a lot of half-measures like the Media City project in Salford; it's a great project, but a more ambitious government would have encouraged the BBC to make it their headquarters.

>>6503
In the /job/ thread there's a description of an HR bint with a vase full of twigs. This seems to be the house they described.

>>6507
Every image includes tiny details that tell me I would never enjoy the owners company. Just imagine having to stay the night there with that fucking heater right by the bed.

>>6508

While I get most of those issues, I miss some. Could you explain them all for the hard of thinking, lad?

>>6509
The only one I get is that it's not a bath, it's a sink.

>>6507

God I fucking hate these stickers.

How fucking tacky and generic can you get?

There's a certain kind of person that gets shit like this and I hate them.

Bet their Facebook is then with their two young boys who are their world.

Cunts

>>6509
>>6510
From left to right:
1) Well its just a mess isn't it - look at the unfinished job between the wall tiling and bath.
2) Sink is on the piss which by the looks of things has been caused by the daft ledge and cowboys.
3) Its not the mislabelling but that there is a label at all, why?
4) Toilet has been built into the wall to make life more difficult.
5) Cistern lid over-stretches the toilet for no reason than to collect grime.
6) Pattern doesn't match the tiling. Sounds minor but imagine seeing it every time you take a shit which you will because it will be eye-level.
7) Toilet roll holder built into a corner for no reason.

It annoys me because its all so needlessly terrible. I'm sure at one point a lovely renovation was planned to attract buyers but almost immediately amateurs encountered a problem with the plan and decided to make it up as they went along.

>>6512
>7) Toilet roll holder built into a corner for no reason.

That's a freestanding one, not built in. To be fair to the owner, it's probably perfectly within their arms reach.

>4) Toilet has been built into the wall to make life more difficult.

Stupid things like this tend to be in a lot of commercially built houses. If the house has been designed that way to begin with, anyone trying to fit a new bathroom has the choice of leaving it how it is, or have the toilet stuck out another foot into the middle of the room with extra messy pipework.

Everything else I agree with though.

>>6502 Not in the North - This property is near centre of Norwich in a slightly downmarket area, but still a 5 minute drive to the centre. This is fairly lower-to-mid standard price once you're out of the immediate centre of the city.

>>6512
>Toilet has been built into the wall

Can someone please show me the difference between a toilet built into the wall and one that isn't? I'm just picturing a toilet.

>>6515

Normally you can see all the pipework behind the khazi, as pictured here. In the photo above, the pipework has been boxed in behind the tiles. It looks neater, but it's a nightmare if something needs fixing or replacing.

I pulled out in the end. The clincher was that when I went to the Estate agent I got talking to a lady who was waiting. She was selling her house and gave the keys to them to do viewings - they had lost her keys and couldn't find them, this was the second time it had happened.

Doesn't really inspire confidence if they leave out vital information and lose house keys.

>>6517

That's estate agents for you mate. I'm pretty sure they're not human, but rather a highly adapted land-based species of krill.

>>6517
The ones I dealt with when moving into a new flat gave us the wrong account number and sort code to transfer the deposit to them. If it didn't bounce back as an inactive account, I'd have lost 500.

I am looking for a flat to rent.

I have found one I like, and the letting agent wants £125 (non-refundable) before they will even draw up a contract. So if I don't like the contract, that money is wasted. They also want lots of other fees, making a total of £525, almost one months rent - £625.

This is for a letting agent that turned up late, didn't know what council tax band the flat was in, could not find the car park to show me, and had to phone the office to find out what the fees were. I am also almost certain that they did not give 24 hours notice to the existing tenant, as they arranged the appointment on the phone almost exactly 24 hours before it took place, and when we arrived the agent didn't seem to know if the flat would be occupied or not.

I was ready to negotiate on these fees, and overlook the incompetence of the agents, until I did some googling and discovered they have been rated 1/5 stars on allagents.co.uk.

Tomorrow I am going to tell them to fuck right off.

>>6876
This is exactly why the entire burden of the agency should be on the landlord. The landlord has the power to leave and use another agent. The prospective tenant just has to put up with the agent or pick another property.

When I was looking for somewhere to rent a couple of years ago, I found a cracking little place. Then I saw the name of the letting agency. I wondered why it rang a bell. It turned out it was because a couple of weeks before a consumer affairs show had run a property special, including a whole bunch of dodgy letting agents. Most of them issued statements with the flimsiest of defences but offering refunds as "gestures of goodwill". Except for the firm behind the flat I'd seen. They were the worst of the bunch, having kept the whole of the deposit in all the cases of theirs featured, and then completely ignored the programme. IIRC, the tenants got CCJs but were unable to enforce them.

>>6877

If an agent expects a fee go elsewhere. If the contract is more than two pages, go elsewhere.

Fuck these cunts.

I'm selling my house, First bunch of viewings this morning, all well and good.
How prejudiced am I if I got a 'gonna haggle and be a pain in the arse' vibe from each of the two laplanderstani dudes who 'wanted it for their big families'?
Is that code for HMO slumlord, or a real thing?

Also, I print out the details and floorplan when I'm going to look at a place. How shambolic do you have to be to not bother? I fucking hate people.

>>6879
I know a couple of estate agents and the job has made them incredibly racist against Joes because of how dodgy and slippery they are.

It's called gazumping.

>>6879 again
Just about to exchange contracts with my Mr Ali. Local taxi driver, nice bloke, and apart from going quiet for a couple of weeks, and haggling (quite badly), all's well. He's pushing to be in in time for Ramadan, which suits me and the rest of the chain. Does seem to be moving in, not slumlording it, although I'm impressed that you can get a mortgage on a £0.6M house as a taxi driver selling a terrace.
All estate agents in the chain appear to be slack and borderline retarded. Maybe they're doing lots of really clever stuff under the surface...

>>6878
No new home for you.

>>6924
>I'm impressed that you can get a mortgage on a £0.6M house as a taxi driver selling a terrace.

Maybe it's because I live near Dewsbury, but my first thought would be that he's involved in drugs or something else shady.

>>6930
>Dewsbury
>Houses cost 0.6m
I'm pretty sure a house in the shit parts where you lads live cost about a couple of Frosty Jacks. Stop trying make laplanders sound like millionaires.

>>6931

Loads of the areas with good access to Leeds and Bradford are rediculously pricey, not to mention the mini mansions that got built by the indians a few decades back.

There's some lovely affordable places if you're willing to live in the arse end of nowhere mind.

>>6931
I wasn't specifically referring to houses. They tend to flaunt their wealth on more materialistic things. It's not uncommon to see a Joe living in a crumbling back-to-back house whilst there's a brand new top of the range Mercedes parked outside despite not having sufficient legitimate income to be able to afford this.

>>6933

I've noticed this quite frequently. When I lived in student digs the lad a few doors down had a nice white AMG Merc, which was easily worth more than the flat he lived in. The white boy option seems to be a hot hatch with thirty grand's worth of work done to it.

It defies all logic, surely the rozzers stop them all the time? My dealer drives a Prius with a bike rack on it and a kid's seat in the back. Surely that's what you're wanting.

>>6934
Maybe they are hard workers.

>>6935
Nobody is disputing they are working hard, it's more the legality of their activities.

My other half worked at a school where a couple of the students went off to fight for ISIS in Syria. She said there was a not insignificant number of Asian lads who didn't see the point in trying hard in school, these being ordinary lads rather than troublemakers, because they saw the drug dealers driving around their neighbourhoods in flash cars and wanted to be just like them. They didn't need good grades or an actual job to achieve this.

>>6935

The ones I'm talking about were dealers. I just don't know why they think it's a good idea to sell drugs out of an obscenely expensive car. It seems many criminals of all creed and colour do it, and get away with it too. Either they're jammy bastards or the police just don't give a shit?

>>6937

They rarely get away with it forever, they just tend to make the most of it while they can.

The ones with the conspicuously flash cars are the ones who have reached sufficient standing that they don't need to get their own hands dirty, so to speak, but it's only a matter of time until one of their underlings squeals when given the option of a reduced sentencing.

A nice car is the most expensive thing you can buy with cash. A lot of mid-level gangsters have more cash than they can spend, because they don't have the expertise to launder it efficiently.

You can't get a mortgage based on your drug dealing income. If you buy a house in cash, the conveyancer is legally obliged to report it. Buying a Merc in cash from a private seller is obviously dodgy as hell, but it isn't going to trigger a moneylaundering investigation.

>>6939
We're on about Asians, lad. Asians. They know how to launder money. Why do you think almost every other establishment in Dewsbury is one of those forsaken all-in-one takeaways offering curry, burger, kebabs, pizza, fried chicken and fish and chips all under one roof?

>>6940
To cater to the wider community? How else can you diddle anyone if you can't attract them with under-seasoned, bland foods?

>>6940

That's not an efficient way to launder it lad. That only grants you access to the luxurious lifestyle of Mr Ahmed, owner of Balti Hut.

>>6936
>They didn't need good grades or an actual job to achieve this.
It doesn't really matter since coloureds with uni degrees are multiple times more likey to be unemployed than whites. Maybe Akhmed doesn't care about grades anymore because his older brother with a good 1st class MEng is on the dole.

>>6942
Go on. What's an efficient way to launder money then?

>>6944
Not him but I always assumed setting one's wife, sister or daughter up in a no-customers tanning salon was the way to clear those cocaine thousands.

>>6943
My anecdotal evidence is that the reason Asian graduates are less likely to be employed is because they're freeloaders. If Daddy is a rich solicitor or doctor who regularly gives them money to fund their lifestyle then there's little motivation to stand on their own two feet.

>>6946
Alright bigot lad, then how do you explain how almost ALL uni educated minorities are more likely to be unemployed compared to their white counterparts? Do they all have rich doctor-teacher dads too?

>>6880
He turned out to be a lovely bloke. Moving next week.
If he was a godless bastard like me, I'd have left him a nice bottle of wine and my collection of takeaway menus, but given that he's of a Polar persuasion and already lives locally, that's not really helpful. The Mrs thinks flowers. That's not too weird, is it?

>>6967

Everyone likes a nice box of chocs. Unless they're lactose intolerant, but a truly multicultural society should have zero tolerance for intolerance. Or vegans, but fuck vegans.