Ideas 13...The Right To Buy Your Own Home

Before I moved into my present hovel I lived in a one bedroom flat in Edgbaston, Birmingham for twenty-four years. I applied several times over the years to buy it, but I did not qualify, due to unemployment, mainly caused by ageism, outdated skills, too much competition from unemployed engineers and my criminal record. I was told by a neighbour that directors or managers of the housing association had moved into properties next door that the HA owned, and were buying them. Whether that was true or not, I don't know. At this time, most of the right to buy for tenants, only applied to council homes. The right to buy for housing association tenants came into effect nationally in 2018. In my opinion, right to buy is overwhelming proof that HMG has no intention of mass producing zero carbon homes. Its priority lies in selling off state assets in order to pay off the national debt, thereby salvaging the capitalist system. Wasteful food production, unnecessary transportation and methane emanating from waste tips, will continue to signify business as usual.

When my mother died, at the age of 96, I was bequeathed half the estate. Most of this I spent on purchasing a three bedroom ex-council terraced house with a garden, within walking distance of the city centre. I did not want to live in a high rise apartment. I had had enough of them. I was now suffering from asthma due to breathing in exhaust fumes from the main road on one side and spores from ten holly trees on the other. I had complained to the council about the latter. They wanted about 120 pounds to pursue the case, but I remember taking a company to the small claims court once, regarding a PC I bought, only to end up paying about three times more than I was originally told it would cost.

My new home took about six months to buy, with one hold up after another, during which time I looked at several alternative properties. At one that I looked at, the owners told me that the property they wanted had been sold, so when the estate agents phoned me and asked me what I thought of the place, I told them that I would think about it. One week later I phoned the agents to find out whether the owners had made any progress, only to be told that the property had now been sold, probably at a lower price. And the moral to that story is, sell your home via the internet, not through an estate agent.

I found another property I liked, which was being sold by two estate agents. It was two weeks before I found out that it had been sold, but one estate agents had not told the other.

I saw about a dozen properties, the vast majority of which were in poor condition, being acquired by ex-council house tenants with little or no money. Things dragged on for so long that I ended up surfing the internet for this Irish couple. They wanted a house, not a flat, in a particular area next to a bus stop. I kid you not. Eventually they realised that I was serious, and then the sale went ahead. Nearing the purchase date the estate agents phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to put in a bid. I didn't know whether I could smell a rat or not. So I put in a bid just 2000 pounds less, the reasoning being that the 100,000 pounds was not to buy the property, but was a bribe to get them out. I knew that if I reduced the price too much then they would not be able to afford to move. I also knew there were vultures in the property business.

One property I wanted to buy, an end terraced ex-council house opposite an off-licence and public telephone call box, was on the market for 125,000 pounds, which I thought was over priced. It was sold for ten thousand pounds more to a young Asian couple.

Total legal costs came to 1150 pounds. I had done it through the internet, but I advise you to do it locally, after you get a quote. The removal was a farce. I also arranged this via the internet. The removal lorry was so small that they had to make two trips. Because of this a number of items were left behind, so they didn't get a tip.

The house was well decorated with laminate floors everywhere except the kitchen and downstairs loo. The place looked well maintained but this was deceptive. When I went to switch the lights on in the master bedroom on the first morning, they did not come on. I went into the loft. I shook the wiring to the five downlighters, initiating a spark. Upon investigation I found that the insulation had not been removed from the end of the wire before being inserted into the connector block. Some of the wiring looked like spaghetti. I therefore decided to get the wiring tested.

The testing cost about 45 pounds, but I got my monies worth. The electrician had a fit when he opened the new consumer unit (fuse box) and found that the earth and neutral wires had not been connected individually to the two bus bars. "Whoever did this should get his arse kicked," said the irate electrician. Upon testing he found that there was a break in the ring main that connects to all the switch socket outlets (SSO). Also the switches on the landing and hall were not connected properly to the landing light. The second electrician said that he would fix the latter in fifteen minutes. It took him one and a quarter hours. The break in the ring main, between the SSO to the left of the cooker and the SSO to the right, was never fixed as I did not want the bedroom laminate floor to be lifted, the ring main now being two spurs. Eventually I got an electrical certificate for the house. A few weeks later one of the miniature circuit breakers (mcb) failed. I called in the second electrician who fixed it in seconds. It had only jammed. "Very rare", he said. That cost me 20 pounds.

The Baxi combi-boiler was losing pressure more frequently, so it had to be repaired. That cost me 300 pounds to fix. My solicitor had previously asked for a full report on it, but all he got was a receipt for an inspection. Over the first ten years I had to have parts replaced four times by Baxi. I never got a receipt, nor a statement detailing what work had been done on it. I only use it about seven months each year.

The previous owners had cleared off with the lounge electric fire. So I had to buy another one from Homebase DIY store. I had to replace a number of items in the kitchen. The vertical blinds didn't work. The worn out cooker extract wasn't connected to an extract duct and neither did it have a carbon filter for recirculation of air, so I replaced it. The tumble dryer didn't work. I cleaned the blocked filter, but it was obvious that the heating elements had burnt themselves out. Since the washing machine had black spots on the door seal I replaced both with a new 400 pound Hotpoint washer-drier. One slightly larger than the one I had left in my flat. I was not amused. I phoned the previous owners, the address I got from the internet. The lady was quite adamant that the drier had worked the last time she used it. I also left behind my ceramic cooker and fridge-freezer, but fortunately the gas cooker and fridge-freezer I inherited were just as good. The space where the drier had been was filled with a near matching draw unit.

I covered over the kitchen floor with laminate, but when I put the final plinth back in place I realised that half the floor was not flat. This left gaps in the laminate, which I glare at each day. The kitchen being on the north side of the house was very cold. I had to fill in two air bricks and the cooker extract vent with expanded foam. I couldn't understand why the kitchen was still cold, until one year later I noticed a worm crawling across the kitchen floor from the direction of the kitchen sink. I removed the plinth to find rat droppings and a hole in the floor, into which the sink drain pipe went. Evidently, every time the wind hit the facade, it sent a blast of air down the drain then up into the kitchen. The next day I covered the hole in the floor, under the sink, with annular formwork and concrete.

Some of the double glazing was replaced, as there was condensation in them. The window latches needed replacing as there were no locks on them or the keys were missing. I had to install about sixty per cent of the loft insulation myself as what existed didn't even cover the loft to 100mm, never mind 200mm. The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) was totally inaccurate. I also removed rubbish in the loft, upon which I discovered rat droppings. When I moved in there was only one fluorescent light bulb. I replaced all the halogens with LEDs using a cable kit from Amazon, and replaced the GLSs with fluorescents. There were five transformers in the loft feeding the halogen downlights, to dump. I also replaced the bathroom extract fan with a kit I got from the internet, as the existing fan motor sounded like a tooth grinder, whilst the ductwork in the loft had somehow been flattened.

I installed new flat pack furniture in the second bedroom, the wardrobe taking four attempts to get right. To add colour (everywhere was off white) I bought some pictures for the walls, including vinyls for the bathroom wall. The mermaid looks great.

All of these repairs and updates took three months, but would have taken much longer had I not had an internet connection. At about that time a couple of whores who had ensconced themselves each evening on the pavement opposite my home, finally left for the last time, empty handed.

It took months to switch my electricity and gas supplies to my preferred supplier and finally get rid of the pre-paid electricity meter. The photo-voltaic panels on the roof cost me £4,700, and performed really well, until El Nino came along. I experienced years of heavy cloud and rain from then on, due to global warming heating up the North Atlantic Ocean above normal. PV's don't like shade. Output dropped by about 75%. Soon after the PV's were fitted my converter failed. This was located in the porch, and converts direct current from the PV's to alternating current for the mains. The PV installers fitted another new converter, but this also failed about one year later. I contacted the insurers who eventually sent an electrician around. He discovered that the mains supply voltage was ten volts above the operating parameters, so the unit shut down automatically, rather than get damaged. I assume the supply voltage was too high because of all the PV's on the roofs of houses on the estate. The supplier was clearly not monitoring the system, resulting in electric kettles, toasters and tumble driers burning out, and in some cases setting fire to the kitchen. The output from the local transformer was eventually turned down, enabling my converter to operate normally. The operating light twinkles in the cold damp darkness.

I think I spent about 2000 pounds on the house in total, and at least 4000 pounds on the garden over the next two years. At least 400 pounds was spent removing eight conifers and one hundred paving slabs. That's a cost most people don't take into consideration when buying a property. The effort brought me close to tears when I realised that my mother would never see it.

One day I went into the loft for the first time in a year. As I lifted the hatch a cascade of rat droppings fell onto the landing floor. The ultrasonic rat scarer clearly doesn't work. I've put some Rentokill bait blocks down....and placed a curse.

The inaccurate EPC beggars the question, was the cavity wall insulation installed properly, years ago. I doubt whether a surveyor would have found all these problems. There are still a few that needle me, such as the skirting board in the lounge that wraps itself around the base of the radiator, preventing air getting to the back of it. It needs raising 50mm. Then there is the back garden side fence which is 300mm inside the original fence. The garden is only 5m wide so that's quite a loss. There is no way that I can justify spending 1000 pounds just to move a 1.8m high by 22m long fence, that has been set in a continuous ribbon of concrete. Then of course there is the back door, which does not hang vertically. It's 2mm out, enabling me to see daylight at the top left hand corner. It's little things like this that really upset you when you have paid so much money.....and of course the rats. One day whilst I was in the bathroom, a rat scampered across the floor from the hall to the gap where the waste pipe enter a vertical duct. I would have leapt in the air if it wasn't for the fact that I was sitting on the loo at the time. They come down the duct from the loft, particularly when the rain has flooded their burrows. They climb other houses, then travel along the roof to my loft. Every month I get food take-away circulars pushed through the letter box, and it's these that feed the rats, through all the dropped containers. I've planted mint and Crown Imperial Fritillaria in the hope the odour will scare them away.

There are other heart breakers that you can truly do without, like those bills, water, electricity, internet & phone, gas, community charge, excise licence, MOT, parking fine, but the one that really upsets me the most comes from HMG. Living on a council estate, this letter is indiscriminate. The words on the back of the envelope read, HAVE YOU LOOKED INTO THE RIGHT TO BUY YET? YOU COULD BE ELIGIBLE FOR A DISCOUNT OF UP TO 77,900 pounds. With debts of well over 600 million pounds, plus an ongoing legal case for fair pay for female workers, BCC was desperate for the money, whilst prospective buyers were desperate for real wages and job security. My advice is, if you live in a block of flats, do not buy it, because the chances are that you will soon be presented with a very large maintenance bill, or the structure will quickly be demolished.

About eight years later I finally decided to fix the kitchen door. It needed raising five millimetres, which could only be done by inserting seven washers into each of the three hinges. I jacked up the door and updated one of the hinges without any problems. Needless to say each of the other two had a screw that simply would not budge. I had to drill one of them out, whilst the other could only be removed by grinding off the head. It took hours of effort, but in the end the door sealed against the jamb correctly. A few years before I had replaced the locking mechanism for the front PVC door, from a part I bought on Amazon. The repairs to the house seamed never ending, but that was nothing compared to the garden. As my reshaped garden grew, so do all the mowing, weeding, painting of fences, planting, pruning and lugging of fertilizer and compost.

After ten years my 25x5 metre garden consisted of a pergola by the kitchen bay window containing buxus balls, a weeping cherry, clematis and hostas. Next to that was the alpine plot containing dwarf conifers, lavender tree and a hedgehog home, which was never occupied. Diving the garden in two was a lattice fence supported by an original brick lined raised garden 0.5m wide on the far side, and a swing seat on the house side. The raised garden supported climbing plants for the lattice fence, including laburnum, honeysuckle, roses, passion flower and clematis. Beyond that was the grass lawn on which grew a monkey puzzle tree, weeping willow and swamp Cyprus tree. Herbaceous borders ran down both sides of the garden from the house to this point, which included a tamarisk tetandra, wisteria, black beauty, ceanothus, hydrangea, cherry, apple and plume trees. Beyond this was the natural element comprising an ornamental pond containing aquatic plants and a fish pond housing about twenty fish consisting of goldfish, comets, shubunkins and golden orfe. The fish pond was 4x2.5 metre by 0.85 metre deep. It was spanned by a foot bridge, made from an old fence, leading to the back gate, against which towered a flowering columnar cherry tree. Around this pond were two Italian Cyprus, four holly trees, one giant hosta, a buddleia, rambling rose, two giant Gunnera plants, agapanthus and a host of marginal plants including irises and bulrush. Roses, rhododendron, daffodils, tulips, Asian and oriental lillies, and alliums abound everywhere. The more I planted, the more waste had to be wheeled through the house, in a dustbin, to the wheelie bin. Eventually there was no space for anything else, not even bulbs. The Dicksonia Antarctica and canna tropicana were kept in the kitchen over winter

The front garden was dominated by the cordyline australis (cabbage tree) and trachycarpus fortunei. There were seven types of lilly, including voodoo lilly, plus Chinese banana, red hot poker, alliums and pineapple. They all required tender loving care, being supplemented my new orders each year. Gardening can be an expensive obsession.

So these are the kind of problems you are likely to come across when you buy a property, and the chances are that you will have no shoulder to cry on at those moments of stress. And there will be lots of stress. Do you really want to leave the loving home of mum and dad, the bank of mum and dad, the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of mum and dad?

And if you are reading this and still insist on coming to the UK as an economic migrant or refugee from Hong Kong, etcetera, then please don't come anywhere north of Watford. In fact may I suggest Guildford, Surrey, which is rated the best place to live in the UK.

If you are considering selling your home, here are a few tips which may speed up the process.

Selling a property in the UK does not come cheap. It is more expensive to sell a home than the costs in buying one. Estate agents fess range from 0.5% to 3.6% of slae price, plus 20% value added tax. For a home costing £250,000 that's £7,500 + £1500 = £9,000 For those buying a home in the UK, plesae note that stamp duty is not paid below a sale price of £250,000, but in March 2025 this will be lowered to £125,000. The current rate is 5% to 12%, and must be paid within 14 days of the purchase. See the government website. In addition, a survey is likely to cost you from 3300 to £1500.