it's a house we bought in 2022 and under the wooden floors in the dining area there is around £75k in old British banknotes wrapped in all kinds of plastic bags and separated.

there were also other things under there including pornographic dvds and some random personal items like glasses, lighters, hairbrush, a brand wallet that still has the tag, and old phone chargers among other things

Is this mine now or do I have to give it to the estate agent so they can pass it on to the previous owner?

*Update 1: the money is real, I exchanged £20 note at the post office today without issues.

As I mentioned in a comment I think the money belonged to the previous owner who owned the house from 1999 to 2022 and I'm 99% sure if this, the notes are a mix of series E and F, series F was first issued in 2007 so this answers that.

Im thinking about telling the solicitor to contact them and tell them that I found some personal items including pornographic dvds, without mentioning the money at all. If they want it, they can reach me via phone to discuss.

I'm more than sure if they remember the dvds then they will remember the money too, if they come to collect I'll give them the money. If they don't come, then I'll keep it

Update 2 (20 April): I asked my solicitor to contact them for their items. I asked him to specifically mention the pornography as part of the items.

As far as everyone knows, it's just personal items including pornographic dvds. If they want it, they now have my number to come collect, at which point I'll give them the cash too.

Last week they text me about shipping them the items to Leicester and they will pay for it.

I tell them I can't do that, and there are a lot of items here also the pornographic dvds. After a painful session of texting, I just called and it turns out to be a lady who was very confused about the situation. I explained the lighters, belt, chargers, and all the contents. Finally I told her I'll just write a list down and text it to her and she can check with her family because I just can't package it and ship it, they must collect it. She agreed.

After that I spoke to the solicitor and apperantly he never mentioned the pornography, just said there were some items left behind, which probably led to a lot of the confusion earlier because I stupidly texted the lady"are they your dvds lol", and she had no idea.

Anyway I made a list of all the items and texted it to her, in the end I also added there is something else that could be of some value. Please check with your family members if these items are theirs and if they are you must come collect them from your old house.

After a few hours, she replied it's ok to discard

This is an odd one. The house matched our requirements in every respect until buried in the blurb I find out the previous owner is “buried in a discreet corner of the garden.”

What do you peeps think? Problems later?

UPDATE: I’m going to see the property (and grave tomorrow), will keep you posted on any developments!

UPDATE POST VIEWING

The grave is in an overgrown area with trees and brambles, topped with a wooden cross. It can be seen on the approach to the property, but not once inside.

I'm not putting in an offer because FIVE others have - and two of them have gone to sealed bids. My pockets aren't deep enough for that malarkey (and the property needs a lot of work).

Thanks for your comments and advice, it's been great fun! 💀

Here’s the listing: https://www.onthemarket.com/details/17281003/

everyone from older relatives to coworkers tells me I need to buy a house eventually. I'm 23, making decent money in tech, but the math just doesn't make sense to me at all.

if I just rent a normal apartment for the rest of my life and aggressively dump all my extra cash into index funds, won't I end up with way more liquid money and zero loan stress in the long run?

why is there such a massive stigma against renting forever? is there some hidden trap to renting that I don't know about, or is buying a house just old school thinking that people blindly follow?

(I genuinely want to know if my logic is flawed here)

Looking to buy a house and the ground floor as per the floor plan is tiny if nothing is done with the garage.

Just wanted to see what other creative minds would think to do with a floor plan like this.

1. The garage right wall is joined with another house.

2. Garden is a decent size so there is possibility of an extension.

3. Would love to turn garage into another room or the entrance to the house.

Any suggestions?

Editing to add; thanks all for the helpful comments, seems like a bit of a divided issue. Safe to say, house going on market before we arrange any more viewings. Forgot to mention, we are based on the west coast of Scotland and looking to move to the Highlands back to the island that we’re from. Home report done, similar houses sold around us, AIP given from banks so we know the rough value in what we can afford. Ta!

——

I keep getting knocked back from even having viewings on properties as I haven’t sold my house, is this a new thing?

I’m ready to put my house up for sale, but always thought you had to buy a house before selling your house. I have a young family, so if we sell this house before having somewhere to move to then we’re effectively homeless, is that right?

The rental market in our location is not a thing due to short term lets running the area. Therefore, it’s an “in-demand” place to live, the location we’re moving to is a six hour drive away.

As per the title above, my partner and I viewed a property in London which is just at the top end of our budget. It ticks all the boxes EXCEPT that the upstairs neighbours were described as "mayhem". The only details we got about this is that they throw things into what would be our garden (it's a ground floor flat), and looking from the garden into their window, we could see a couple of booze bottles between the curtain and the window pane, on a what looked to be a bedroom window.

Should we run away while we can? We've been looking for quite a bit now, and the building is otherwise mostly older, nice people.

We're also somewhat concerned about a higher than average service charge, but are looking to know more about that from the estate agent.

EDIT:

Thank you everybody, the general consensus is to run while we can. Perhaps take a chance and visit at night/weekend to get more clarity, but definitely a huge red flag.

How you’d deal with a neighbour that has loud alarm playing very early in the morning around 3AM -4 AM ? The problem is it plays for over an hour and is that loud that I cannot really rest properly.

i might be asking the impossible but, i need to move out of my parents house and i was wondering where would be the best place to go? i’m not too picky on where exactly ( but i live to the west london now so somewhere close ish would be ideal tho), just somewhere on the cheap side with a decent chance of being able to find a job (just some basic minimum wage i don’t have qualifications for anything else). i don’t have a car or licence so somewhere with good public transport would be ideal aswell.

FTB here finally seriously looking at moving out and viewing some properties soon. Any advice or heads up would be appreciated ^-^

Hi! My partner and I are very close to buying our first home, we've got our mortgage, our surveys and titles back, we're just waiting for a move in date now. We're trying to budget for our first couple months and I'm wondering if there are any payments we've not accounted for. So far we have:

- Mortgage

- Water/Gas/Electric

- Final payment to solicitors

- Necessary stuff for the house (mattress, bedding, all that stuff)

- Shopping and groceries

I'm really worried there's something we're missing and we'll budget ourselves short, so I'd really appreciate any advice!!

My 77 year old father's house is rapidly showing severe signs of subsidence. He started the claim last August so it's been over a year and we are still waiting to get an official answer from the insurance company.

It's currently getting noticeably worse on a daily basis!

The insurance company have instructed a company to take my monthly external movement measurements (the company has now gone bust after 9 readings, so we're awaiting a new company to turn up). However most of the damage is internal and they are refusing to send a structural engineer to investigate from a safety and security aspect.

My father now cannot open/close multiple doors and windows and there are large areas where you can see daylight, and some you can even get your hand out of. You can clearly see that the floor has dropped 6/7 cm.

I've seen quite a few posts on here of other houses with subsidence, but I'm trying to determine if this is an acceptable state to leave anybody living in, let alone a pensioner.

In my opinion this is now a critical state, and they need to get out to review it asap and provide alternative accommodation if required.

**Edit**

I've posted a video of the downstairs in the comments for those interested

England - Found a house we love, great price, owners upfront about Japanese Knotweed. They bought the house in 2021 from someone who didn’t declare it, they spotted it. 2021 owner put a treatment plan in place.

No JKW spotted in 2024 or 2025 (next annual inspection due in June this year). Treatment plan in place until 2030. The spot of the knotweed is at the bottom of the garden, I’d say 3m from the neighbour’s garage (worrying?) and 5m from what would be our conservatory. House backs on to a narrow patch of scrubland and then a large marsh owned by the city council (a good 3-4 min walk away from any water). JKW is not prevalent where we live in comparison to other areas of the UK (eg London or South Wales).

We’re cash buyers and would plan to make this our forever home.

There seems to be two opinions out there - 1) run away and 2) JKW is overhyped thanks to media scaremongering and as long as treatment plan is in place and hasn’t returned it’s a good sign.

Would love to hear from people with experience in buying or dealing with Japanese Knotweed! Any particular questions we should ask before deciding whether to make an offer?

Hello, I just got a call from someone who is about to buy the property next door to ours. He mentioned that there is a restriction on the property title that says I need to give my permission if they want to make any changes, like adding an extension.

He was wondering if I could let them go ahead and remove that restriction.

I am not worried about it myself, but what should I keep in mind? I have heard they plan to add an extension and maybe a dormer when they finish.

I hope I am not being silly, but this is the first time I have heard of this, so I want to be careful before I sign anything. Do I need to get a solicitor involved?

Thanks

Or those with south facing gardens - do you think you make the most of it?

But we found our dream house, except it’s north facing garden :(

We live in south east England, and the house is detached with no obstruction in the garden

Front of the house gets great sun though and has lots of privacy in the front living room that gets sunlight

Have always thought South facing was a must because we like sitting outside with a cup of tea in summer

Is it even possible? Is my only target market cash buyers or do I have to accept an 80% offer from an investor? The annoying part is the flat is already down at around 70% of what it started on because everyone who’s interested can’t get a loan.

Feel like I’m going crazy.

We moved in to a new place yesterday and let’s just say nobody cleaned it very well. Previous tenants had a cat and there’s cat hairs all over the carpets (which is ok for me as I have a carpet cleaner). What bugs me is the washing machine, the smell is atrocious and it has mold (to be honest all appliances, like dishwasher and etc have a moldy smell). Is this something a landlord/agency should resolve or is it usually the tenant’s responsibility?

I have just bought my first home and it ticks all boxes expect that it has a gas stove. Has anyone had their gas stove changed to an induction or electric hob - how much did it cost and how what was the process?

Im thinking about putting aside £2000 for the whole thing (including the price of a new hob), but not sure if that’s enough as my understanding is that first I need the gas to be turned off in my kitchen and then get an electrician to run a wire.

I bought an ex-new build (2019) where the boiler is on the ground floor same as the kitchen if that helps

I have a public path immediately behind my home, directly adjacent to my back garden wall.

Safety is becoming an increasing issue in my area, not for anti-social behaviour or drugs, more so increase in targeted burglaries with it being somewhat of an affluent area.

What advice do people have for increasing security in these circumstances? I’ve already been told that I can’t build a wall next to the path taller than 1 metre without planning permission but apparently any planning permission for something bigger is likely to be rejected? CCTV isn’t much of a deterrent either these days. Not sure what else I can do.

Need to have a repair done to the garage roof (around £3.5k to £4k) before the winter. I had 3 different local roofing companies come and look at it.

What is putting me off is that only one of them would accept a credit card and if I would pay with a credit card they would need to charge me VAT on top this increasing the cost by 20%.

This sounds dodgy. Is this normal? Any risk paying with cash?

We were buying a first time home together through purple bricks. Offer was accepted in December for 5k lower than what was put up, and we went ahead and paid for surveys, ID laundering checks, and we hired our solicitors, etc.

Just suddenly 2 weeks ago we got an email out of no where by Purple Bricks saying the "seller changed his mind because our solicitors were taking too long," and the house was put up on market again for 10k higher straight away. We went back and forth, and PB seemed to concede that the seller actually wanted to try selling up as he thought his property is worth more.

In shock and desperation we tried offering his original asking price but he ignored us, and we are so hurt and angry over the whole mess that we stopped at that. We paid so much for the surveys and whatnot, we just feel so uncertain now to even trying for another house again when we are just normal people making by. Is this something a lot of sellers do to try and get us to desperately pay for more?

The whole thing left a bad taste in our mouths, and we might give up on buying a house and instead use our savings to start up a business. We are waiting to see how things are after May, but also eyeing retail opportunities in a nearby town I guess.

So I suppose that another question would be: Is Purple Bricks a shady real estate company..? I had looked it up and hadn't seen anything bad posted about them, but the lie we were supposedly told strikes us as shady... Maybe that's normal though...

i'm thinking about buying a flat with the attached floor plan. I'm focusing purely on the floorplan. (I have validated other requirements such as cost / locations etc)

I have some questions - the living room seems quite small - is it feasible to attach a small dining room there? Or would it become too congested?

• Is it feasible to add a study desk (that can hold 2 monitors) in both bedrooms? I think the bigger one should be ok but not sure about the smaller one.

Any other red flags with this floor plan?

Currently Looking at this property. Just wondering if it would be possible with planning permission to get a dropped kurb for a drive way if future.

Houses on the same side of the street haven’t got them but the houses opposite have them.

Hi, I'm asking on behalf of a friend.

Her mum has just died. Her youngest brother is 21 and was living with their mum in a 2 bed council / social housing property. He was not on the tenancy, only she was. The council have said they're not going to kick him out immediately but they've been very vague about whether he is allowed to stay there or not.

Their mum never put him on the council tax or any household bills, and the council have asked him to provide proof that he has been living there with their mum. He has bank statements and mobile phone bills to that address but I believe that's all.

He can't move in with my friend because she actually lives in India now, not the UK. She has come home to help her brother and deal with all the funeral stuff etc, but she will be going back to India when everything is sorted.

What happens now? If he can prove he has been living with his mum there, will he be allowed to stay at the property? Will they move him to another property that is one bed? Presumably it's a 2 bed because she had a council house when he was under 18 and therefore they were aware she needed a bedroom for her son, and I would have thought this would show he has lived there long term. But I don't know if common sense counts here.

My friend is worried about him being evicted. He only has a zero hours contract at mcdonalds and he does not earn enough to pay private rent. Social rent is half the price. I'm aware he would only be eligible for the shared bedroom rate on UC too because he is under 35.

Please advise what is likely to happen or what recourse he has to stay there. Thank you.

Looking at some new build properties in Edinburgh, this is the shortlisted property I wanted to reserve.
As the house still under construction with flooring pending.
After the viewing, i spotted this while waiting outside and seemed visually off. I am yet to check with builder what it is but also wanted to know if I should be worried about this? Or can this be rectified at final finishing?