future simple passive: mortgage

Showing posts with label mortgage. Show all posts

13 Mar 2014

Up we go...

We are now officially out of the ground!!! Hip, Hip, Hooray!

The stepoc, special shuttering concrete blocks, was delivered to site for the back wall of the house which will sit into the cut. Andrew and Paul are now experts with the old Stepoc and it was faster to erect and I'm sure they won't mind me saying a lot more
evenly laid than the retaining walls. This stepoc is the smaller block size which means that the corners knit together and so we have less concern about blowouts when the concrete is poured.

After a lot of thinking, reading and looking at the concrete floor we've decided to just cover it with a layer of sand to protect it. It takes a month to fully cure so if we cover it up with boarding we could get permanent markings from the uneven drying and the condensation build-up on the underside. The floor may end up being even more Wabi-sabi than before. Wabi-sabi is a japanese philosophy where you embrace imperfection - I'm totally up for that in all areas of my life. I'm even going to say in a totally poncey way that maybe the floor will just be a physical manifestation of the story of it's creation and journey...yeah!

Once that rear retaining wall was built and the concrete poured, our bricklayers arrived to take over. In just two days it looked like this...

We have walls and the beginnings of rooms. Things have shrunk and I'm getting a little worried about how small some of the rooms are feeling, particularly the family bathroom. But hey, I just have to have a good talk to myself. We always knew that we weren't building on a palatial scale, this would be a decently sized but modest family home. I'm forever reflecting on how my role as a mother seems to consist, in no small part, of cleaning, moving, tidying and knowing the exact location of everyone else's STUFF! Less stuff, better life! Dimitri and I travelled the world with a backpack for two years and we promised when we returned that we would have less, but invest in things that were better. The arrival of children has meant though that our possessions exponentially increase year by year. Enough! Having smaller spaces will force us to keep on top of all the stuff and have less. I can sense my mother smirking in the background - 'We'll see dear'.

With the rear retaining wall completed, Liquatek returned to do the final part of their waterproofing. Installing the John Newton Geodrain. Basically it is moulded layer of plastic which has a textile layer bonded on top. So when water comes along through the ground it passes into the cavity between the textile and the plastic and runs down into the land drain at the bottom. Simple, clever and costs over £5000 (that will have got my Dad going, he's a builder...). It's a lot of money, but it has to be done and the warranty people, mortgage people and everyone else insist on it and it has be done by the people who can guarantee it. Good business to get into i would say...

The mortgage company finally released some funds so we can proceed full speed ahead (until we rapidly use up those funds and have to go through this process all over again)! It is a really opaque process. The surveyors inspected and signed certificates to confirm the work that had been completed and we submitted copies of all the invoices we have paid to date to the mortgage company, in order for them to assess the current value. They calculate the current value and then can authorise funds to a maximium of 75% to be made available. The figure they have chosen as the current value seems quite arbitary to us. It is not what we have spent, but a lower figure. We asked for clarification of how they came to their valuation figure i.e. what adds value, but got no satisfactory response. There is no transparency as they don't have to explain anything to us. But a better understanding of this process would help us to understand and manage the cashflow. This is very old school man! I think we are just supposed to be grateful that they have deigned to lend us any money. But look, we're cracking along now and that's what matters!

23 Feb 2014

waterproofing the slab & mortgage woes

Our waterproofing contractors, Liquatek, arrived on site to install our Newton Hydrobond system. Very clever stuff using bentonite, a clay, which swells 150% on contact with water so is called 'self-healing'. It is attached to a fleece layer so that the whole waterproof layer bonds to the concrete.

The waterproofing was complete after a day and a half. We had arranged that we would keep a waterproof guy on site to guarantee the system and any repairs that may have needed to be done whilst the 1st layer of mesh was laid. But thankfully everyone was satisfied that this was not necessary. That saved us £300 a day - does this mean I can buy the expensive bath after all (haha, I wish)?

Thankfully everything was still standing after the gales of the weekend and the caravan had not blown over. It was half-term so the boys were with me as well and were delighted with the digger and dumper action.

The mortgage stage payments and cashflow is a continuing nightmare. Having initiated the process of drawing down on our mortgage back in the second week of January, we are still no closer to the building society releasing any of the funds.

As you may remember we have an arrears (should be renamed "nightmare") self-build mortgage, which means cash is released only after we have spent the cash that we are trying to borrow in the first place. In order to minimise their risk and exposure they will only ever release 75% of what they value the land and work to be worth at each stage.

It has been quite Kafka-esque these last few weeks as first we were told that no paperwork was required, then told paperwork was required, but no one would tell us exactly what that paperwork was! We organised those documents, emailed them, but then got told that they would only be accepted if sent according to a protocol which no one seemed to know anything about. Then the Surveyor went on holiday for a week. AARRRGGGHHHH!!!

Thankfully some friends and family have lent us some money to keep us going right now, we are so grateful to them for their generosity and trust. It feels horrible, & shameful to have to ask people to lend you their money, it makes you feel like you have done something wrong. Without them we would have had to stop work a number of weeks ago and just have waited until Ipswich finally authorise a payment. I can't tell you how frustrated I am right now, and still we have no idea when and what the payment will be.

"It'll be alright, it'll be alright" repeat often with a large glass of wine in one hand, and remember to breathe!

6 Feb 2014

A fortnight

We have had a two week break on-site whilst the final costing spreadsheet was completed and then analysed.

The build is estimated to cost just slightly more than the initial budget, which means we are now working to a contract value of about £195K, rather than £180K. We had allowed some contingency to cover this, and in reality it is fantastic that we have got so close to the original budget. I've seen Grand Designs enough to know that often quotes from builders come back at 2 or 3 times the original budget. However the groundworks overspend blew our contingency out of the water!

So, what would you do? Do you redesign in order to bring the costs down (which will have costs of their own; architects fees, time delay costs, potentially losing our builder to another project for a few months, etc.). Our answer to this is 'no'. Dimitri and I are, as financial advisors like to classify it, "risk adverse"! So we have applied our scientific background to objectively analyse the evidence and decided that we will proceed and it will all be fine!

The fabric of the building is essential, that cannot be redone at a later stage. We have confidence that it has been designed to maximise performance in the simplest and most cost effective manner. If compromises are to be made to the budget then that can be effected at the interiors stage. We always knew that budgets would be tight and that creativity would be the name of the game, in fact i'm really looking forward to that bit.

Andrew has priced using a higher price index than the one we hope we be able to use (remember that local builders merchants were 20% more expensive than WTBS). So we are anticipating a general downward trend in costs of materials. This saving though is probably best used as a future contingency against any more overspend.

There are extras currently in the spreadsheet which may have to be stripped out, such as PV Panels. As we are using a gas boiler for our hot water and underfloor heating it is not essential that these are installed in the first instance.

We have approached our mortgage company and asked about borrowing more money and over the phone they have agreed that in principle this should be fine. However, just to keep everyone on their toes they don't like to approve anything until you have already spent all of your original loan. Presumably this is because they don't want to encourage further overspend. However, the result is that, potentially, you knowingly spend all your money before the house is finished with no guarantee of a further release of money. Any more stress for anyone?

Pages