Posted By: Alicatt
Renovations - 07/16/19 10:48 AM
Not to pull Ajay's thread off topic
No permissions or inspections needed, but it was inspected by a firm that does house maintenance, the only comment they had was to increase the size of the under floor ventilation, which I did do, some of the vent blocks were blocked up and clearing them out should help.
To set the scene, 2 years ago I rented the house out to a young couple, her grand parents were next door neighbours of mine and were well known to my agent that looks after my property. The young lady was a house keeper in a 5 star exclusive hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond. The rent I had set was slightly below average for that type of property as I knew it did need freshened up a bit - it had been 3 years since it was last decorated but was still in good condition, just not my cup of tea
Anyway he had lost his job and then she changed jobs and was getting paid less so they got assistance from the Social Security, that did not pay the whole rent, in fact it was paid directly to them and I never seen a penny of it, the arrears built up and letters were sent, then we managed to get the Social Security to pay their rent directly to me as they had not been paying it, still it did not cover the whole of the rent and they were meant to contribute to it as well and they did not. I visited the house on many occasions as did my agent and could not find anyone in, except the dog, a pit bull terrier. I gave them notice to quit but as the Social Security was paying something towards the rent I could not forcibly evict them. Mean while the arrears were mounting up and now in the thousands of pounds range and I still could not evict them nor could I catch them at home, eventually my agent managed to ambush her and inspect the place and she said that she would have been ashamed to be living like that.
Then the young lady threw out the boyfriend and he came round one night and tried to kick down the door, the police were called and he was arrested and charged, he had wrecked both the front and back doors and smashed one of the windows lucky it was only the outside pane of the double glazing. He had a restraining order put on him and she was put on the vurnable persons list and offered a sheltered house from the local government (council).
So I managed to get my house back and when I went inside I could have cried, the house was one of a row of three that had featured on the TV program The Beachgrove Garden and they all had been given a makeover by the TV program, to see how bad the couple had let the house go in the 2 years they were in it was shocking.
The smell in the house was bad, the mess was indescribable and the neighbours were very angry with me, it took a lot of talking and keeping them informed all through the renovations to get them back on my side.
Right now for some pictures, how I found the house after the young lady left:
In the bedroom there was clothing stuck to the carpet with poo, the bathroom door was scratched deep into the wood by the dog, all the walls had been drawn on and the kitchen was the worst, the water main had been leaking on to the floor and nobody reported it, and as nobody could get in to inspect it it had rotted out the floor, hence me needing to put new joists in. In this metric day and age in the EU it is difficult to find imperial sized material, so it is a case of shimming/spacers and levelling to get the floor to the right height to match the rest of the house.
We stripped the house back to the bare plaster and floorboards and renewed it all, I tiled the bathroom from floor to ceiling and sealed off the floor, it is not a wet room but close, complete new bathroom suite was also fitted, my wife filled and painted the doors while I re-plastered a couple of the walls in the lounge.
In the kitchen I thought the cabinets looked a bit funny and crooked so I stripped out the kitchen and that was when we found the leak, and for that I needed a plumber - I do have one on speed dial the cabinets had started to sink into the floor and the cavity underneath, nightmare for me! and a 1 week paper and paint job now was a marathon, working from 7am to 11pm to get it all done before my wife had to be back in Belgium for a doctors appointment.
These are the pics I used to advertise the house for rent after the renovation, it was let out within 1 week of me advertising it and for a lot more than I thought I would get for it, I pushed my luck with the price and I got what I asked for
Middle house is mine, pic taken by my Phantom 4 drone on the morning of the day I left to go back to Belgium.
Entrance hall
Lounge
Kitchen
Originally Posted by oldgrognard
Alicatt, that looks to be a proper job. Did you need to get any permitting or inspections ?
No permissions or inspections needed, but it was inspected by a firm that does house maintenance, the only comment they had was to increase the size of the under floor ventilation, which I did do, some of the vent blocks were blocked up and clearing them out should help.
To set the scene, 2 years ago I rented the house out to a young couple, her grand parents were next door neighbours of mine and were well known to my agent that looks after my property. The young lady was a house keeper in a 5 star exclusive hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond. The rent I had set was slightly below average for that type of property as I knew it did need freshened up a bit - it had been 3 years since it was last decorated but was still in good condition, just not my cup of tea
Anyway he had lost his job and then she changed jobs and was getting paid less so they got assistance from the Social Security, that did not pay the whole rent, in fact it was paid directly to them and I never seen a penny of it, the arrears built up and letters were sent, then we managed to get the Social Security to pay their rent directly to me as they had not been paying it, still it did not cover the whole of the rent and they were meant to contribute to it as well and they did not. I visited the house on many occasions as did my agent and could not find anyone in, except the dog, a pit bull terrier. I gave them notice to quit but as the Social Security was paying something towards the rent I could not forcibly evict them. Mean while the arrears were mounting up and now in the thousands of pounds range and I still could not evict them nor could I catch them at home, eventually my agent managed to ambush her and inspect the place and she said that she would have been ashamed to be living like that.
Then the young lady threw out the boyfriend and he came round one night and tried to kick down the door, the police were called and he was arrested and charged, he had wrecked both the front and back doors and smashed one of the windows lucky it was only the outside pane of the double glazing. He had a restraining order put on him and she was put on the vurnable persons list and offered a sheltered house from the local government (council).
So I managed to get my house back and when I went inside I could have cried, the house was one of a row of three that had featured on the TV program The Beachgrove Garden and they all had been given a makeover by the TV program, to see how bad the couple had let the house go in the 2 years they were in it was shocking.
The smell in the house was bad, the mess was indescribable and the neighbours were very angry with me, it took a lot of talking and keeping them informed all through the renovations to get them back on my side.
Right now for some pictures, how I found the house after the young lady left:
In the bedroom there was clothing stuck to the carpet with poo, the bathroom door was scratched deep into the wood by the dog, all the walls had been drawn on and the kitchen was the worst, the water main had been leaking on to the floor and nobody reported it, and as nobody could get in to inspect it it had rotted out the floor, hence me needing to put new joists in. In this metric day and age in the EU it is difficult to find imperial sized material, so it is a case of shimming/spacers and levelling to get the floor to the right height to match the rest of the house.
We stripped the house back to the bare plaster and floorboards and renewed it all, I tiled the bathroom from floor to ceiling and sealed off the floor, it is not a wet room but close, complete new bathroom suite was also fitted, my wife filled and painted the doors while I re-plastered a couple of the walls in the lounge.
In the kitchen I thought the cabinets looked a bit funny and crooked so I stripped out the kitchen and that was when we found the leak, and for that I needed a plumber - I do have one on speed dial the cabinets had started to sink into the floor and the cavity underneath, nightmare for me! and a 1 week paper and paint job now was a marathon, working from 7am to 11pm to get it all done before my wife had to be back in Belgium for a doctors appointment.
These are the pics I used to advertise the house for rent after the renovation, it was let out within 1 week of me advertising it and for a lot more than I thought I would get for it, I pushed my luck with the price and I got what I asked for
Middle house is mine, pic taken by my Phantom 4 drone on the morning of the day I left to go back to Belgium.
Entrance hall
Lounge
Kitchen