Buying
The order property decisions actually arrive in
Most buying guides start with viewings. The decisions that constrain everything else are made weeks earlier.
Gareth Pryce
Editor, The Property Decision
Gareth edits The Property Decision and has sat through more chains collapsing than he cares to count.
Contact Gareth through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
47 articles
Surveys & Condition
Survey levels, and which one is worth paying for
A lender valuation is not a survey. Confusing the two is how buyers discover a roof after completion.
Legal & Paperwork
Leasehold: the questions to ask before you offer
A lease is a diminishing asset with running costs attached. Both are knowable before you commit.
Running a Home
The running costs that start the day you complete
Ownership costs are continuous and lumpy. Households that plan for the lumps experience them as scheduled rather than as crises.
Selling
Selling with an agent, and what the fee actually buys
Agency fees are negotiable and the service behind them varies more than the price does.
Buying
Buying at auction: the moment risk transfers
In many auction systems the fall of the hammer is the binding moment, which puts every check before the sale rather than after it.
Buying
Buying off-plan means buying a description
There is no building to inspect, so the contract and the specification are the property until completion.
Buying
The properties lenders dislike, and why cash buyers should care
If banks will not lend on a building, your eventual buyer pool shrinks to people who do not need one.
Buying
The cash a purchase needs that is not the deposit
Buyers save for the deposit and then meet a second bill made of taxes, fees and the things a house needs in week one.
Selling
Selling in a slow market: price, wait or withdraw
A property that is not selling is giving you one of three messages, and they need different responses.
Selling
What the listing has to do in the first three seconds
Buyers meet a property as a thumbnail in a search results list. Almost everything about the sale is decided there.
Renting
What a tenancy agreement can and cannot do
A clause in a contract is not automatically enforceable. Statute overrides agreements in most rental systems.
Renting
Renting from a distance without being defrauded
Rental fraud works because applicants are asked to commit money before they can verify anything. The defence is sequencing.
Surveys & Condition
Invasive plants and the transactions they stall
A plant can affect mortgageability, insurance and liability between neighbours, which is why surveyors look for a small number of…
Surveys & Condition
How a surveyor reads a roof from the ground
Most roof inspections happen from a ladder at eaves level or from the ground with binoculars, which shapes what a report can say.
Surveys & Condition
Further investigation recommended, and what to do about it
This phrase is the most consequential sentence in most survey reports, and the most frequently ignored.
Legal & Paperwork
Work done without consent, and how it gets resolved
Extensions, conversions and replaced windows all leave a paper trail, and a missing document becomes an enquiry at exactly the…
Legal & Paperwork
Choosing a conveyancer, and what no sale no fee means
The cheapest quote and the lowest total cost are frequently different firms, and responsiveness has a value in a chain.
Running a Home
Rebuild cost is not market value
Buildings insurance is priced on the cost of reconstruction, and getting that number wrong quietly reduces every claim you make.
Running a Home
The property taxes that continue after you move in
Purchase taxes get all the attention, and the recurring ones are the ones you pay every year for as long as you own.
Running a Home
Where water actually gets into a building
Almost every expensive building repair begins as water arriving somewhere it was not meant to, usually at a junction.
Running a Home
Energy ratings measure the building, not your bills
An energy assessment is a standardised model of a property, and the number it produces answers a narrower question than most buyers…
Running a Home
Illiquidity is a running cost of owning property
A home cannot be sold quickly at a known price, and that fact has consequences that never appear in any cost calculation.
Running a Home
The house file, and why it pays you back at sale
Everything a future buyer conveyancer will ask for is easier to keep than to reconstruct, and its absence costs weeks.
Buying
Choosing an area with the same rigour as the house
You can change almost everything about a building and nothing about where it stands. Most buyers research the house far harder than…
Selling
Selling without an agent, honestly costed
Selling privately saves a commission and buys you a second job. The question is whether you can do the parts the fee was paying for.
Selling
Selling a house that needs work
Buyers do not discount a property by the cost of the repairs. They discount it by the cost plus the risk of what they cannot see.
Renting
Viewing a rental property in the fifteen minutes you get
Rental viewings are short, crowded and rushed on purpose. A short list of checks in a fixed order beats wandering around admiring…
Renting
Furnished, part-furnished and unfurnished, costed
The furnishing level changes the rent, the deposit risk and how easily you can move. It is a financial choice, not a lifestyle one.
Renting
What a letting agent does, and who pays for it
Letting agents sell three different services under one name. Knowing which one you are buying explains almost every complaint about…
Renting
Becoming a landlord because you could not sell
Letting a property you meant to sell is a different business from owning it. The obligations arrive whether or not you intended to…
Renting
Bills, meters and who pays what in a tenancy
Utility responsibility is decided by the agreement and by who is named on the account. Confusion between the two produces most of…
Surveys & Condition
Windows, glazing and the seals that fail first
Windows are the part of a building people judge by appearance and replace for the wrong reasons. The failures that matter are at…
Surveys & Condition
Cladding and fire safety questions in a block of flats
Fire safety in shared buildings became a transaction issue, not just a building issue. The paperwork can decide whether a flat is…
Legal & Paperwork
Searches: what each one is actually looking for
Searches are not a formality your conveyancer performs. Each one answers a specific question that could change what the property is…
Legal & Paperwork
Extending a lease, and why the clock matters
A lease is a wasting asset and the rate of decline is not steady. There are points at which waiting becomes expensive.
Legal & Paperwork
Buying the freehold with your neighbours
Leaseholders acting together can sometimes buy the freehold of their building. It is a legal project, a negotiation and a long-term…
Legal & Paperwork
Signing for someone else: attorneys, executors and trustees
Property is often sold or bought by someone acting for another person. The authority to do it has to exist, be valid, and be…
Legal & Paperwork
Transferring a property between family members
A transfer within a family is still a property transaction. Skipping the professional steps is where the expensive problems begin.
Legal & Paperwork
When a purchase collapses: what you can recover
Most of the money spent on a failed transaction is gone. Knowing which parts survive, and which can be avoided, is worth doing…
Running a Home
Household emergencies and the first ten minutes
Water, gas and electricity failures cause most of their damage in the period before anybody knows where the shut-off is.
Running a Home
Hiring a builder without losing control of the job
The problems on domestic building work are usually about scope, sequence and payment rather than about craftsmanship.
Running a Home
Extending a house: the costs you cannot see on a drawing
The build cost per square metre is the part everybody quotes. The professional fees, connections and making good are the part that…
Running a Home
The cost of a garden, honestly counted
Outside space is priced into the purchase and then costs money every year. Some of it is discretionary and some of it is not.
Running a Home
Water, meters and the bill you can actually change
Water is the household bill people examine least and can often influence most, because the charging basis itself may be a choice.
Running a Home
When a managing agent underperforms
Leaseholders pay for management and often have rights over how it is done. Using them starts with documents rather than complaints.
Running a Home
Solar panels on a house you might sell
Panels are a long-term investment on a building you may not own for their whole life. How they are owned matters as much as how…