Wales is getting tough with homes that aren’t occupied enough:

From 1 April 2023, the maximum level at which local authorities can set council tax premiums will increase to 300%. The powers given to local authorities are discretionary so whether to charge a premium on long-term empty properties or second homes (or both) is, therefore a decision to be made by each local authority.

https://www.gov.wales/council-tax-empty-and-second-homes-html

But you’d have to hope the house you sell has increased enough in value to be able to afford to buy a smaller home as you may have very little (if any) equity.

Well hard to imagine no equity built up over a 35 year period, or whatever, even with just matching inflation; but yeah, worth building up savings as well just maybe don’t worry about not having enough to pay off the mortgage.  I haven’t needed to take this approach, helped by buying in ’96, but perhaps it’s an approach for some younger people.

Interest only whilst looking after family at home, then retire and move to a small place somewhere away from heated house price areas. Need to ensure kiddies leave though!

Would a VAT increase be a fairer way of reducing money supply? Many aren’t affected by interest rate rises but many of those that have mortgages start to really suffer; renters could also be affected with owners wanting to increase their rental income – though they can only do what the market will bear.

except, unless you’re a nerd, it really doesn’t matter, plus you’re lumbering yourself with all the disadvantages of an (old) PC too… updates, Windoze, instability, probably higher power consumption.

Well that’s down to personal preference but many of us can get hold of old office PCs for little money then use that or put in a cheap GPU and experience the wonderful Zwift world in all it’s glory…!

If your going to get a separate screen may as well use an old PC for better graphics. There’s a group for this:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/231265821324897

to release it everyone moves to one side of the submersible and it rolls off

So no rushing to one side to look at a particularly interesting fish then

I suspect the lender doesn’t care, but if you’re unable to repay because of your sister’s circumstances they won’t care then either and any of the consequences will be on you.

Indeed

 – used my mortgage to lend money to my sister

Is that technically legal?

Why not?

I’m in an ‘interesting’ situation as used my mortgage to lend money to my sister as it’s a lot better than she could have got – 0.48% over BR tracker. She was doing well when rates were low but not things are a bit trickier, might have to switch her to interest only for a while

Someone through a rock out of a car that hit my windscreen whilst on holiday recently, fortunately it mostly hit the A pillar and didn’t kill me or leave the screen completely shattered. I had to wait nearly 4 weeks for that to be fixed, fortunately I didn’t have to drive much once I got home.

Time as a PM opens up vast potential income if done right – Blair managed that very well.

Fine for helicopters. just need to paint a big H.

HTH

The cautious approach is pension payments vs mortgage reduction – and indeed deciding on whether to move to a more expensive property. No point missing out on important things just to be rich in retirement.

FWIW I didn’t bother on pension until I was a higher rate tax payer and had the house I wanted with a manageable mortgage

The forecast is for inflation to come down dramaticall over the next couple of years so hopefully that’s right and people can hold on for a while – lodgers/AirBnB can help some

Phillip Schofield hasn’t attracted as much sympathy as he might have hoped for – he can retire easily enough.

I see they’re putting in a gravel board on my side as well as on their ‘good’ side so perhaps they did listen to my concerns about the soil. It’ll rot before the posts start I suppose so could be replaced

– My wife keeps buying Ninja air fryers – 4 bought in the last year.

are they unreliable?

Wives or the air fryers? She changes her mind on what one she wants – so not that reliable really.

My wife keeps buying Ninja air fryers – 4 bought in the last year.

They are using timber gravel boards on their side but don’t care what happens on my side – my suggestion about reusing the tree trunks felt enrironmentally sensible – bugs will live under them.

I was a little concerned about damp soil pulling up against the fence on my side as I’m a bit higher up and I want to flatten my side anyway to grow things on. My idea was to use done of the hedge tree trunks laid down against the fence posts to keep the soil away. Good idea or not? They don’t seem to care

Anyone interested in an update?!

Well it’s been a while…. In January they cut down their side to the stumps leaving me with some gaps which I then removed my trees from but a big section in the front garden and most of the hedge in the backgarden were mostly fine so I could leave those.

Then they discovered that putting in a fence was going to be expensive, very expensive as don’t want to use ready made panels. After a few months of thinking they talked to a few contractors and were told that all the stumps need to be removed but also the trees on my side as the roots would make putting a fence in very difficult; also the concrete boundary posts would have to go. They came to me and said was I happy for them to do all this at their cost and I agreed, they said we’d agree the line for the new fence.

More time passed and now the hedge and posts have gone and they want to agree the line. Now that boundary is mine, so the concete posts are on my side, so my view was they can put their fence in on the other side of where the posts where. They didn’t like this and wanted to put on my side. I discussed with a friend and he said well that would either mean the fence is yours, so have to maintain it, or in time the fence if considered there’s as they put it in could look as though it was on their side so the boundary would have changed by a few inches. He was adamant that they put the fence in completely on their side. Unfortunately they got very angry about all this, and really I wasn’t able to discuss easily, so I got my friend to come over and he agreed with the contractor what was right so it’s going in on their side. Feels like they hate me now!

No real progress on this yet though now hinting want to remove a section of the hedge, I think that’ll be hard to do aesthetically but need to establish what that means

This came into my feed, it’s DM so won’t post the link…

Woman in 20-year battle with neighbour over 50ft hedge admits defeat

Thanks for three replies – in restricted as with family and have to squeeze in rides when I can.

Dan W that would be great thanks

Rishi would seem safe but whys a multi billionaire wanting this job? Any answer I can think of is worrying.

Plenty of wealthy people go into politics and have ambition to rise to the top – probably more obvious in the US. People go into politics generally to make the world a better place – albeit in their opinion – those that want to get to the top are ambitious but there are generally easier ways to make money for the bright – worry about the stupid ones as they’re earning well above their natural level.

Approx odds – Truss 3/1, Mordaunt 2/1, Sunak evens

Possibly new sales should be banned but it does provide a quick hedge which I suppose is it’s main appeal. Laurel grows up to 2 ft/yr though so a more attractive option and easier to manage later on.

I can’t imagine it would have any impact on house value, worst case it costs a few hundred pa to maintain but I do it myself. A good dense hedge insulates the garden from sound and sight pretty well. However, if it went I wouldn’t be overly upset but I don’t want to pay thousands for that.

we moved in to a house with about 30m of leylandi – 4m high and 5 metres thick. £1,700 to take it out, take it away and grind the stumps.

5 or 6 years ago, though.

That sounds like a bargain to me, I recently paid £500 just to have a couple of trees heavily pruned.

Outer edge for whom though?

Thing is currently she expects to remove the trees on her side so damaging the hedge on my side where her trees’ branches Conner through to my side so if I do nothing I get a damaged hedge

Cougar – there are concrete posts so assuming they mark the boundary line – I can see wires once ran the length of the garden through holes in the posts

I doubt I’ll get away with making no contribution but I don’t see much benefit to me from the change. A bare fence won’t be very attractive so I’ll have to plant a load of shrubs and then wait for them to grow and the loss of privacy until things grow enough isn’t appealing.

The house the otherside is being redeveloped and they’ve received their side of the hedge that side but only the branches so the hedge remains ok on my neighbour’s side. Think she wants to replace that with a fence too though! Her plot is a little narrow so she wants to maximize its width

Well you make a good point but the distance between the boundary line and my edge of the hedge is a metre or so which means my hedge will look pretty tatty. It’ll improve over time but doubt it will completely and will take ages – I did have a gap left by a dead tree but managed to fill it in by tying branches across which eventually filled out

Yeah it’s inoffensive though mostly as I’ve maintained it fairly well, it used to be worse. On her side it is pretty ugly.

I wonder if they should keep all their trees just trim beck to the trunks then out a fence up, that would be so much cheaper. Obviously the hedge would still be visible and brown above the fence but that’ll be pretty much the same if my side it’s left anyway. I guess they think they’re forcing me to remove my side

Yeah I know a lot!

Some photos of the key parts front and back

Access is tricky to her rear so yeah that’ll require more money. Mine too since I blocked up a way around the side.

I’ve had a bit of a look inside the hedge and removing half is definitely an issue, some trees are inline with the concrete posts so I guess she can’t remove those without my approval.

Anyone want to speculate as to the costs? Maybe you’ve done something similar?

Yeah the laurel hedge she wants to plant won’t do so well with my half of the hedge still there and shading it as the sun is on my side – though the new fence with shade it anyway.

If I wanted to do what she’s doing I’d feel pretty guilty and want to negotiate doing the lot and how to split the cost. I’m guessing complete removal and replacement is going to be close to £10k, I could easily be wrong but wonder if they have a good idea.

When I moved in 15 years ago the hedge was about 12ft high and I spent months lowering it 3ft plus at the bottom end they’d been left to grow into trees which I had ‘fun’ bringing down

Easy to say you’d remove when you don’t have to pay, I can think of funner ways to spend that money.

However, my game plan is to see if she’ll bribe me to remove mine and if not then once she’s put in the fence and her new hedge has grown to give enough privacy I’ll likely remove mine over time.

It’s mostly at the rear, I can see this costing 1000s for no benefit to me – well yeah I’ll get some extra width but not something I really need

In my side it’s about 10ft high but maybe 2ft higher on her side as her garden is lower and the hedge hasn’t been so well looked after as the previous owner died and it’s been 2 years since her side was trimmed – she only moved in a few months ago.

I’m sure she’ll hate how it looks with my side left, I’ve reason I want to leave us that a 6 ft fence isn’t going to cover much privacy – the hedge is great for that.

The hedge goes from the street at the front ask the way to the end of their garden – just be 50 metres so that’ll get expensive pretty quickly – we’re in Surrey