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We bought a house with two different causes of damp. One was easy to fix as it just involved guttering though that still involved sending my husband and his mate up ladders. I would not have done it for anything as scared of heights (so were they!)

The other involved digging up a concrete path that was not allowing free flow through the air…[Read more]

Damp is somtimes it’s easy to fix but it can be messy and leave you needing to do plastering etc etc and because you need to do that it becomes a good idea to do xyz and so on .
This place is old and we live with a degree of rising damp .as long as non of the walls turn black with mould as long as I practise good housekeeping ( opening windows…[Read more]

Take a competent builder with you to get an idea of cost to rectify, then add 15% for the unforeseen. I wouldn’t be put off if the cost of works is within your budget. Also, the housing market for flawed properties is in the doldrums, why not put in a very cheeky low offer, they have reduced the price once, why not some more? Good Luck.

I’d suspect the owner hasnt fixed it as he was that greedy he just wanted the rent money, and not to actually spend any money on doing the required work to the property

I would be wary, my son’s owns the freehold for the flats that he lives in.
The top floor flat has damp on the chimney. The pointing has been done, the guttering checked, my husband has been up with the builder and seen everything has been done well. Several builders and roofers have looked at it and everything suggested has been done. However top…[Read more]

Get a quote off a building company that offers a guarantee that it will be resolved. I’ve had damp work done and it’s majorly disruptive. Makes a massive mess and you are advised not to redecorate for months.
It wouldn’t be a deal breaker but I would want a very large reduction in price.

Are you sure its rising damp. I had damp at the front of my house which appears from the ground up the first floor outside wall, I assumed rising till i actually watched the rain come down, flood over my gutter and bounce off the ground outside and then hit the front of the house. It had clearly been happening for several years. A quick trip up a…[Read more]

I’ve been reading up on the general causes etc. and from what I can vaguely recall the damp appeared to be all the way up the wall to the second storey so perhaps connected to the chimney in some way?

The loose plan is to visit the property and meet with the owner, then if the alarm bells aren’t going completely mental I’d like to take an expert…[Read more]

why not take a builder with you to have a look and advise. Certainly damp would never ever put me off buying a place (this one had rising, falling, dry rot, wet rot) if it had that certain something. Dam can normally be solved and a trusted builder will look at it and tell you why its likley to be there. Is it lower than the ground round it, is…[Read more]

You need to find out how much it will cost to rectify the damp. You might also find your lender won’t want to mortgage a property with a known problem like that so you could risk having your mortgage offer withdrawn. That said, plenty of people buy wrecks of houses with worse problems and as long as the price reflects the work needed to be done,…[Read more]

Thanks.
OH is a sole trader and I would say went to an accountant just being excited with the idea (and not to the cheapest one), the guy just hasn’t looked through paperwork properly.

@ester We didn’t, just employee a new one and they contacted old one and got the paperwork from them directly. We went through two in quick succession which I was worried looked bad, but have been with current one for a number of years.

Limited v sole trader depends on how much your turnover is. We started out as sole trader, then went limited. W…[Read more]

Sorry guys for hijacking.

What is correct way to tell an accountant to where to go?

I have been contracting for a number of years.

Best route is for your OH to set up a limited company – in the contract world most companies don’t like dealing with sole traders. Set up isn’t expensive. When you do the set up divide the shares between yourself and OH – you can both take dividends which reduces the tax burden.

Look for a bank that…[Read more]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply @sar
Much appreciated.

The accountant has been recommended to us by someone who works in finance so we are hoping he’s good but since he’s not been in touch yet it’s hard to say

I was self employed myself in the past but the accountant wasn’t great so not using him again. I was a sole tr…[Read more]

Absolutely the best thing I did was get a really good accountant who knows his stuff inside out.

From someone who is ‘in business’ and has been throughout the last fifteen years employed, self employed and latterly ending up the director of my own limited company, utilizing two different ‘trading names’, there are a lot of different aspects to your question(s).

Self employed as a ‘sole trader’ is the simplest form, ie you work literally for…[Read more]