First class claims service? Yeah, right!

Halifax's website suggest they have a first class claims service for insurance? Hmph, not from my recent experience.

So, after informing them of the leak, we were told they wouldn't pay for the roof repairs or the ceiling repairs but that they would send someone out. So, we got a visit from Imperial Consultants on 15th May 2008 who confirmed that the damage was "consistent with water coming in" but, because we had been told by Halifax to get the leak repaired before they would send anyone round, couldn't confirm where the leak had come from (he went on the roof).

After the temporary repairs had been done to stop any more water ingress, we eventually got some roofers to come and fix the roof. The ceiling collapsed after a few days, so we had that put right at our expense as well.

Nothing atall happened in June as we'd been told by the Halifax to get quotes for a new kitchen (which we did from B&Q, Magnet, Moben and MFI). That took a while as we had to sit through sales pitches, designs etc and arrange all this for evenings and weekends when we were both free.

Once I had these quotes and supplied the quotes (verbally) to Halifax, then all of a sudden they moved the goalposts and decided that they wanted to fix the kitchen. I tried explaining it was trashed by the water, but it's very hard to explain this when they're sat in a cubicle 60 miles away.

On the 31st July BTC came around to assess the damage and recommended that someone should come around and remove the tiles, as Munters had said it was wet. This dragged on for a few weeks and finally BTC came back to remove the tiles on 15th August.

We've had Munters come on the 20th August to bring a dehumifier to dry the walls, but unfortunately BTC had not been round to remove the kitchen units, so the machine wasn't going to do much until they'd been. Adam from Munters came again on the 26th August, but it was a waste of both of our time, as the kitchen units still hadn't been removed, due to Halifax dragging their feet giving the instruction to do so.

On the 23rd August, Kat noticed that a painting hanging in the dining room on the wall opposite the main kitchen wall (where the leak had come in) had a black mark in the corner. On taking the picture off the wall, it was clear that mould had grown on the back of the painting, damaging the newly plastered and painted wall and trashing the painting (an original).

We reported this to Munters when they came to check on the dehumifier and he tooks some pictures of the painting and the damage and instructed "an expert" to come around and see if it could be restored.

I received a call from ServiceMaster and they came around to take yet another picture of the painting and the damage on the wall, to them see if they could instruct "an expert" to enquire about restoration. The guy didn't seem hopeful. I have heard nothing since.

BTC finally came and removed the wall units on 29th August, but only had instruction to remove the wall units and left the base units. I was horrified as I watched them literally pull the units off the wall, bringing part of the wall with it, which crashed down and damaged the cooker glass top.

I reported this back to Halifax and we are now due to have both the Halifax's loss assessor (Mike) and BTC back again on Monday 8th September "to verify the damage".

I can see an argument brewing here, surely this is not the best idea in the world, to have the customer accusing BTC of causing damage, while the BTC guys are right there?

Leak!

Almost a shame you can't "back post", because that would be useful - I need to keep a diary for insurance puposes, but anyway, the sooner I get started the sooner all the info is down "on paper" for me to refer back on.

Back on the 1st May this year we had a pretty major leak in our roof above the kitchen (kitchen extension), this was a bank holiday weekend and it poured down on the Sunday if I recall rightly. Kat came into the kitchen and you could hear the water dripping down somewhere. We quickly realised it was coming from the kitchen unit near the window, as it was dripping into a fruit bowl. The whole worktop was covered and as we opened the wall cupboard door, the whole cupboard was just covered in water (still dripping).

It didn't take long to realise that the ceiling was bowing, so I climbed up on the worktop and punched some holes in the ceiling. At this point, the water just gushed out.

Over the next few weeks, every time is rained it filled out bowl strategically placed under the ceiling (atop the wall unit).

Over a year and still zero properties in the portfolio

I can't believe it, it's been over a year since I visited this page and I still don't have any properties in our "empire". Reading back, I gave up on City View even though it had a great rental income and we carried on looking. Anyway, we found another apartment (actually 2!) just off Deansgate in central Manchester.

So, a good deal was done with a desperate seller (making a loss), but then the credit crunch hit just as we were trying to get a mortgage and that completely screwed up any profit that could've been made. For several months we tried to get a good deal, but eventually had to pull out due to sky-high interest rates on BTL mortgages.

So, we are going to leave it for another year and instead this blog will concentrate on my efforts to renovate my existing property, aka "my home".

Rules of Acquisition

Who would have thought there would be so many rules and regulations in buying a small flat (err, apartment). I have to have gas and electricity inspection certificates, lodge the deposit with a goverment registed scheme, credit check my tenant, tell the tax man about my new income - and if I screw up one step I could be prosecuted, fined AND have to give the tenant 3 months rent back as compensation!!!

Further, making it all add up to "profit" is doing my head in. Not only do I have to give te goverment a huge wod in capital gains tax when I eventually sell up, trying to work out exactly what I can claim back is proving impossible. Anyway, I'm determined - if others can do this, I can. I want to have given up work in 5 years. This will be my job!

Mortgages, argghhhh!

Actually, I found it easier to get a buy-to-let mortgage than getting a mortgage approval for my main home. It seems this is because where landlords are concerned, the banks don't care about your income or expenditure or anything else other than: How much is the rent? and Does it cover the mortgage payments?

As we'd found (by doing research!) an apartment with a low purchase price and a good rental income in a saught after development, those questions satisfied the banks easily enough. All sorted then? Er, no.

Slight problem - the apartment block is not a new construction, it used to be council flats bought by a developer and then "renovated" into swish apartment blocks. Oh no, the banks did not like that one bit.

My mortgage brokers are still searching for a deal we can accept, but so far the interest rates are ridiculous because of this stupid point. Looks like we might have to let this baby go and make sure we view "new construction" apartments and not refurbs!

It's most annoying because we've done our research and the rental income versus purchase price can't be beaten on City View......stupid banks!

Viewings!

Viewings are always the easiest part of any property search, you either love it or hate it - there's rarely any in between. We recently decided to become landlords and buy out first buy-to-let (before we've even finished doing up our main home, I might add). So, we viewed a reasonable apartment in Manchester, called City View - surprise, surprise, it has a view of the city!

So, now onto the hard bits........getting it for a price we can afford, sorting the finance and getting a tenant in it double quick!