Cyclemonkey

I am assuming most people are not going out just for an ice cream. Why would you be more likely to catch it from an ice cream queue than say the queue for meat, vegetables, bread, alcohol or just walking down Lordship lane. Anyway they are two different issues. Cafes and restaurants are allowed to sell hot or cold food for takeaway - collection or delivery. So this is allowed. Whether you personally want to queue or go in to the shop is up to your risk appetite as with every other permitted activity at the moment. I am making the choice not to get the bis at all, others are happy to do so,often for short journeys.

Show me where the government has defined basic neccessities? Stop making up your own rules. Food and drink take aways are allowed to be open. I am allowed to be out of the house to exercise or shop for food or medicine. If on one of those trips I also decide to buy an ice cream, a coffee or a can of beer to take away that is completely within the guidelines. Yesterday we went out on a combined exercise and essential food trip (bread and flour). We also bought jam doughnuts. Not essential but it cheered up our walk back no end and gave money to a local business we would like to survive this.

Is there a government list of essential food? No there isn't. Ice cream is food, therefore shops are allowed to sell it to takeaway. Sainsbury's are selling it, along with all sorts of "non essential" food.

Multi tasking, you can leave your house to exercise/buy food and get an icecream. If Sainsbury's can sell ice cream to takeaway then surely other businesses can? Some.people will not be happy until all we are allowed to do is sit at home eating bread and water and judging people.

Cafes and restuarants are allowed to stay open to sell food to takeaway. Either for delivery or pick up. Ice cream is a food.

What are you going to report them for? Being a takeaway food business? Because that is allowed.

What do you mean by "period house"? Every house is "period" given it was built in a specific time period. There is a perfectly decent 1960s four bedroom terraced house with garage and garden on my road currently on for ?620,000. If you want coving, a fire place and higher heating bills some Victorian speculative build will probably cost you a good ?50,000 to ?80,000 more.

If it is laminate flooring it should be fairly easy to take up a few bits to take a peek at what is underneath. Most purpose built flats tend to have concrete hardstanding between floors - our purpose built 1930s flat certainly has as did the 1980s ex council flat we lived in before.

NewWave I hear you! We live right at the top and it can be a curse but it wonderful once you get there - a real hideaway. It's they only place I've lived in London where you can wake up to birdsong.

But it is a bit of a slog up that hill after a long day at work!

Some of the roads in Forest Hill have great views. Taymount Rise and Eliot Bank are a couple. I suspect a flat will be better than houses for the kind of views they are looking for. Both those roads are decent blocks of flats.

Nothing more to add other than shock and sympathy for the tenants and leaseholders. How awful to think you have somewhere secure to build a life only by learn this. Wandle and Southwark have some serious explaining to do.

Hardly the most important or pressing issue here although I imagine like a lot of public bodies Lambeth Council will probably have a large multi site commercial contract with an energy provider that is probably paid monthly in arrears.

You need to work out ASAP what the freehold arrangements are. If you Co own the freehold you will do so via a company of which you will be a shareholder That company should send you accounts every year and there will be an AGM. If that is the case speak to other shareholders and see if you can call an EGM to sack the useless agents and address the issue of the leaking roof. If there is a separate freeholder then get together with your fellow leaseholders and investigate right to manage.

I wonder how many comply? Our block of flats is in private grounds and putting up sales boards is forbidden. Doesn't seem to stop them attaching them to our front gate. What we have taken to doing is removing them, putting them on the pavement and then calling the agent telling them that we have removed the board they attached to private property without permission and have now reported them to the council for fly tipping.

I think it's hard to tell. Traditionally the time before Christmas is slow because people don't want to move over Christmas, however people sell for all sorts of different reasons and have different drivers. I think London is such a mad market often normal housing market wisdom does not apply. We bought in Forest Hill this time last year and when we were looking in October/November 2014 prices were reducing all over the place from the peak of price madness in early January 2014. Conventional wisdom also says that political uncertainty also drives housing market behaviour and a big driver at the first time buyer end of the market is the coming changes for buy to let investors - tax changes and increases in stamp duty for people buying additional properties. Ultimately you cannot second guess the market so you have to find a budget you are comfortable with, don't be panicked into exceeding it, be prepared to be flexible and accept that despite your preferred time line there are a lot of things in the house buying process you have no control over.

?250 a month for a one bedroom flat in Little Venice in 2000? Seriously? I rented in a house share in New Cross in 2000 and paid ?320 a month for a room in a rather old fashioned and tatty three bedroom thirties semi. Bills excluded.

The rules are often less to do with the pub and more to do with restrictions placed on them by the local licensing authority. If I recall most pubs locally licensed by Southwark have restrictions around children being on the premises in the evening. Pubs really can't make exceptions for sleeping children or distinguish between babes in arms and toddlers otherwise things become very complicated.

Isn't it to do with the fact that the Overground falls under TfL and the rail services to London Bridge are Southern Training a so the fare structures are different. To me that makes a case for all suburban rail within London coming under the management of TfL.

I also think it is perfectly reasonable. We have a housing crisis partly because of lack of supply. Now a lot of that is lack of building but also because the favourable treatment of housing as an investment incentives people to hold on to property rather than sell further constraining supply of the type of property first time buyers can afford. I bought last year and it was deeply depressing seeing everything you can afford being advertised as "ideal buy to let investment" and agents and vendors using "well we can always take it off the market and let it out" as a tactic to central higher offers.

Oh you would be able to tell if was fox poo believe me. It stinks worse than dog poo if that is possible.

Penguin the proposal is that the extra stamp duty will be levied on the purchase of ANY additional property over ?40,000. If you own a property you lived in and you De ide to buy another property to live in and let out the first property you are still buying an additional property.

Advice on the new stamp duty rates up thread was untrue. The focus was on BTL but the proposal is that a 3% extra stamp duty charge will be levied on second homes regardless of what they are used for. Therefore if the OP retains their existing flat and buys a new place to live in they would be treated as buying a second home under the new system proposed. I am not sure if the proposals will keep prices down for FTB but it is about time the very favourable tax treatment of property investment in comparison to other investments was ended. What it may also do is provide a disincentive for exactly what the OP is trying to do. One of the issues for first time buyers is constraint of supply and that is not helped by people retaining their starter flats to let out when they trade up in the hope of gaining later on from ever rising house prices.

Dog mess everywhere is an important issue. Not only is it messy and disgusting it can cause serious health problems including blindness, particularly in children.

Oh so what are you wanting to achieve? If you remortgage interest only you won't be paying off any of the capital anymore so are you relying on house price appreciation to build up equity? Secondly have you done your sums in terms of expenses? Have only recently stopped renting in East Dulwich I would say if it is a decent flat in a good location you would probably get around ?1,300 a month in rent. Out of that you have to pay the mortgage, agents fees, put aside money for essential repairs and maintenance and to guard against void periods and tax. Do your sums and see if you come out with much at the end of that. If you don't I can't see what you are trying to gain. The income stream probably won't be much and going interest only means you won't be paying off the mortgage. Are you simply holding on to it in the hope that value will rise and you will make more money selling it in several years time than now? That's a risky strategy and a lot of work for potentially modest equity gains. If I were you I'd sell and give yourself less work yo do and a better cushion of equity in your next home.