Don't mean to put a downer on it but that's in breach of your mortgage terms (heavily FCA regulated)… If your tenant wanted to be a dick for whatever reason or someone else did - an ex or other, its a sure-fire way to have your credit record fucked for a long period of time and suffer some financial penalties from your lender + penalties… Messy just swap it imo

Thanks guys for the responses but specifically just looking into the ‘non resident’ part. I’m considering doing what you suggested Toasted tbh. Doubt anyone would find out and not bothered about my credit score etc in UK as won’t live there again ( maybe )

No, just wanted a BTL mortgage.
From what I recall, said he’d been out of work for six months already and couldn’t continue to pay the mortgage, hence renting.

For those that are able to log in, I need some advice regarding a dispute.

Be prepared for a long read…:

I needed an architect to draw building reg plans for a rear extension, as we have successfully received approval from council.

We got in touch with an architect that said he will be able to do the building reg drawings for £400, but it's dependant on the reliability of the drawings we submitted to our council for approval. Sent those to him, and he came back with the accuracy seems 'poor', his basis of that was due to the elevation drawings, which in all honesty isn't bad - and again has been used in previous council planning approvals (see image he provided as a basis to confirm as 'poor')

As a result, he said he can still do the building reg drawings for £400 based on the plans that we already have, but he would prefer and advise for him to do his own measured survey to redraw the existing plans and elevations accurately. However this would be a further £200.

The main reason that he proposed the redrawing is that because the approved extension is over 3m, he believes there could be issues, so he proposed a different style of roof, and due to the clearly inaccurate drawings he cannot accurately calculate whether the roof will work. We confirmed that a neighbour has the same roof that we submitted for approval, but happy to discuss his proposal further.

I responded with a negotiation of the price, and requested a date to survey the property. I received no response to my email. I sent a text message confirming I have responded to his email, and is xyz date okay. We confirmed a date via text, but did not confirm the price.

So he arrived, and we discussed the issues he raised re: original drawings and roof proposal. We essentially rejected the roof design proposed, and stated as a result we will be sticking with the originally approved plans, and confirmed we will only require the building reg drawings as a result.

He proceeds to do some measurements of the ground floor only, and said he will have things sorted in a couple of weeks time. That he would require 25% before he can begin any work on the drawings.

My mistake here is that I forgot to re-confirm the cost in person during the meeting given that we were no longer redrawing the plans, i.e. the additional £200. Unfortunately, he had just left before I realised. So I sent a text message immediately stating:

"As discussed, we will just go with the building regulation drawings - could you confirm the cost for this?"

He responded with:

"Building regulation drawings and specification document will be £600.
As discussed if you could arrange 25% payment to begin drawing work please."

I re-confirmed that we discussed we no longer need to re-draw the plans.


There's been alot of back and forth since, recent message from him stated:

"I have already spent time and money on conducting and drawing the survey so it would be in both our interests for me to complete the job."

Which I don't understand, as there was a stipulation that works won't begin until a deposit was made.

The guy seems unreasonable, had he stated, there seems to have been a misunderstanding, that's fine, please just pay 25% to cover travel expenses for example, I'd have been inclined to.

The £200 according to him was to:
- measure property
- Redraw the plans
- Redraw the elevations

He didn't measure the entire property, so how would he redraw the elevations?!

Dont think its supposed to be an existing plan, rather a proposed after works have been carried out

No, mtthrvy2 you're correct, when you analyse the existing front elevation closely - it is off!

Nevertheless, the floorplan measures are correct, and have been verified by others.

Any heating engineers here? Just had an offer accepted on a property and the current boiler in situ is over 30 years old has a water tank too. Looking to have the whole lot replaced but thinking whether to go down the heat pump route or a boiler that can take a mix of hydrogen gas and natural gas, with the view to having it modified to fully hydrogen gas when that becomes more "widely available" in a few years time. I can see the benefit of heat pumps as it's not beholden to external producers, that hydrogen gas is like natural gas. Thoughts or opinions? Or any other options that I should be considering?

I'm considering the air source heat pump route, place is fully electric and very well insulated but the current system (Fischer) is returning an annual electricity bill of circa 3K, and the hot water system isn't ideal as it only serves the taps. A return to a water tank has to be on the cards so we can remove the electric shower and install a bath with an additional bathroom/shower.

The prob we have is we plan on extending the front of the house (sealed the planning with some foundations) but we are putting it off for 2 or 3 years and I want to install new floors and update the bathroom to the back of the house first, they badly need putting right. Need to find a way to pull that off with minimal disruption with the future extension.

Poss wet underfloor heating with a heat pump, new water cylinder with an option to add solar and battery, but we need planning permission for the solar as it's a flat roof in a greenbelt area. Bit of a head fuck to deal with but that's the thinking so far, hoping technology improves fairly soon and waiting to see what Tesla does with the Powerwall. It all looks expensive!

If you can insulate to the right level then heat pumps are probably the best option, using the current grants, I also wouldn't be surprised if future tax policies shift weight towards gas.

Hopefully, they can pull things off like this soon…

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/solar-panels-work-in-dark/

You still need a boiler for your hot water so a combi boiler will do your heating and hot water in the uk for most houses. You also need a fairly airtight house for it to work well, which most UK houses aren't. If its pretty new, or has new windows/doors and good insulation in the loft space (current building regs spec as a minimum) then it does start to work given the price of gas. Works if you have lots of PV/solar too. Payback is a long time for it and will work better in a house with fewer larger rooms. Lots of small rooms doesnt lend itself well to it really.

All in all, different house construction in US, larger houses, more extreme swings of temps in some areas and just general availability meaning costs are a bit lower all make it a more tempting prospect in the US than the UK.