JollyScot's Journey Starts

Where are you and where are you going?
JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Yeah I have seen that the software engineering has an extra special layer of extra unpaid work before starting a job. For a profession in so much demand it is a wonder how all of the workers put up with it.

Everyone has their biases, I am not sure the HR systems really fix it. More just absolves people of having to think about what biases they do have. I might be wrong, then again I am not sure what my ones are. I know I have one around those who previously worked at a "large" consultancy. Too many experiences of a bunch of them coming in and causing big expensive messes (that they fix). I suspect a former state workers will be added to that list, so I will need to watch for that too.

Personal non choice based and I am less sure, they will be much deeper whatever they are.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Somewhat large update on my general housing issues and progress.

Old Flat

We have managed to fix the underlying issue with the extraction of air in the kitchen through a combination of filters and additional ducting. Thank god we left a disconnected duct in the wall after we were initially told to take it out. Otherwise would have been coming down.

Hopefully this means we can process the sale now.

Over the last couple weeks tried to work through the annoyance of the whole thing. Thought back on some of the stoic readings and come to term with just having to deal with shit things and people and progress to a solution when they occur. Can get angry but actually need to just keep calm and work on a solutions instead.

Before the building regulation individual returns I have been through a few steps in the background.
  1. Got confirmation from a surveyor that he thought the changes were fine and should be signed off.
  2. This surveyor has agreed to attend the sign-off visit on return of the building regulator, just in case and to field answers to more technical questions.
He didn't think the changes made were required based on the plans but it is done now. In the nature of having a back up for everything the following steps have been put in place.
  1. A letter of comfort is produced in lieu of the sign off that will be given to the buyer and let them decide if they want to proceed.
  2. If they do not then offer them the chance to rent if they still wanted to live there. I.e. if they can't buy because of mortgage.
  3. Rent the flat out fully and just become a landlord and eat the extra stamp duty costs initially.
However with the opinion from a surveyor and history/audit trail of exactly what the building regulations has done. Formal court proceedings would begin for the costs of their decisions. This is obviously the least preferred option, but if happens for a second time then so be it.

New Flat

Now with regard to the new flat, been running through the things that need fixed. Any structural changes have now been scrapped to make sure we avoid any council based interaction. A few of the bigger ticket items will now be removed from the list and we will stick to the core change which are, kichen/living room, bathrooms, sealing outside holes...A lot of holes.

The vast majority of the work we will do ourselves, but there are a couple of things we will need help with.
  1. The kitchen/living room floor needs levelled before we put down a consistent new floor.
  2. Balcony door needs repaired. We thought about replacing, but that likely needs permission and council. So repair only.
  3. Potentially a fix to windows but this can wait and we will see post winter.
  4. Full insulation check. We need to get someone in to find exactly where all the air is coming from. We tried but haven't found everything.
Items that we will be doing ourselves.
  1. Rewire the house and new lighting. Brother in law an electrician
  2. Replace electric central heating and with normal electric heaters. The central heating cost were extortionate.
  3. Some plumbing changes for bathroom, Best man of brother in law for this one.
  4. New flooring in kitchen/living room, I'll be doing this after practice on old flat.
  5. New carpets in bedrooms and painting or paper, carpets we may or may not also just get fitted depending on cost.
  6. Tiling and flooring for bathrooms
  7. A sauna in the largest bathroom. Thought about buying this but due to the odd shape of room would be expensive, or using cheapo materials. So new skill learning it is.
  8. A series of carpentry projects for myself around the place. Cabinets and wardrobes. Not much storage in large flat. But plenty of little spaces that could do something with.
  9. As we work through the changes find and fill in the holes. A large chunk behind the current kitchen.
The bathrooms are going to be first on the list. The kitchen might be done this year too. However with having to work it won't be doable.

This should keep our costs pretty low relative to the upgrades we are doing. It means a few higher quality pieces will be installed with savings. We have been through that in full yet. A full tot up of costs will start getting done as we really being looking at ordering materials. A higher spec flat will be considered in some areas as we may rent out the balcony room and want the price to be sufficiently high to justify dealing with people. This income will be used to "pay" back the costs.

Furture Work

Now that I've had a bit of time to calm down the lessons of the process has resulted in a few extra principles for when I'm working with property.

Have the Architect (if used) detail all building regulations that need to be adhered to and that a portion of their payment should be subject to that completion. Similarly have the builders final payment also contingent on that final paperwork. This time round I gave them too much leeway and trusted their skills. I'll need to be more tough on that in future.

The expectation is that these extra conditions should weed out the less informed choices. As if you won't agree, then you assume there may be an issue, then why should you be hired...we will see how that goes in practice.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Good news, the changes made to the flat has been signed off and we can complete the sale.

The cash injection will go to my parents and they can decide what they want to do. They have started mumbling about a move to the country. Much like everyone else at the moment.

I have suggested they wait until October/November time when the free government money runs out to see what the actual market will look like. Since they would be buying anything in cash at the moment they will be competing with those using a mortgage to rush out of the city. Possibly the newly minted countryside people will never need to go back to the office, but I am not so sure.

If they do move we would buy them out of their share of the flat. Will go and speak to the banks about trying to get a longer term fixed interest mortgage (stop me from selling assets). Seen 10 year fixed at 2.08%. Relative to inflation it is a negative real rate. in the longer term if a fixed rate is not secured then we would rather not have the mortgage. A long enough time period for whatever is happening to flush itself out only, otherwise not worth taking it on.


The first few updates to the new flat have been done, All of the downstairs lighting has been fixed and changed over to high efficiency items as opposed to the old poor efficiency type. Additional coverings for the windows have been put up the stop drafts. Some additional sealing of the older windows will need to be looked at.

Started to look at the bathrooms. Considering a new boiler between two bathrooms and the directly below kitchen sink. At the moment the current tank powers a central heating system, however there are so many non insulated pipes running through the property that we just can't track them. We are starting to think a new smaller system is a better choice.

The flat used to be a single 400 m2 property that was split into 2 x 200 m2 properties. The result is that we just can't see where all of the pipes are going. We have a feeling that a lot are currently running through the other property as well. Its a pretty big mess.


In terms of work I am already starting to get bored doing it. The initial hump of learning what they want is over and I am now just progressing the tick boxes they need on their project. 3.5 month left and then I will wind down again, I am not having fun. Not really seeing the large income being paid as it all gets lost in the noise of the market movements. If it can help me secure a low cost mortgage then it will be worth the time spent. I am aware that the additional pay is smoothing out my investment swings so better to have this extra funds to invest than not.

My Japanese learning has already taken a hit as a result of the job and I am only just starting to get back on top of it. All of the house developments that I could be working on has been put back until the end of the contract. So I think I have actually managed to cross the line where I have more non work things I would like to be getting on with relative to the pay that said work pays.

I know I have said this before. This time I have actual defined project to be getting on with. As opposed to I want to stop because the work I do is rubbish. Based on the amount of work the company has I think they would probably want to extend the contract in December. I won't be doing it though, so from that perspective I will have "created" a high paid job for some other person.

The process has also been started to wind up the company. With the tax changes that happened in April the company is pointless the UK now. I would like to have it all closed before the UK comes with a new budget in Novemberish time.

SavingWithBabies
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Location: Midwest, USA

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by SavingWithBabies »

Congratulations on the sign off! I was reading along and hoping it would work out. That sounded extremely frustrating.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Been a lesson that has changed my view on housing quite a lot. First house nothing much happened, a broken boiler once and the tenants I had in peed on one of the beds and left.

Whereas this one had:-

Issue with initial seller
Issue with architect
Issue with builders
Issue with committee that maintain flat
Issue with energy company
Issue with extraction system
Issue with supplier of bathroom items
Issue with noisy neighbor
Issue with council planners
Issue with council building regulations

So a lot of lessons from the single property. I could argue I was paid to get a very fast education on how property really works. All in I will come out being around £20,000 ahead of what my capital investment was. So it has all worked out because the initial price was right and the upgrades idea added enough extra utility.

I made everything harder on myself with not being in the country when some of the upgrades were done. Leaned on professionals to cover off certain things. The professionals missed a few key items, combined with the failings of the initial dealings with the council.

Could I have spotted them had I been around....maybe...but probably not. Am I being unfair with regards to their fails, yeah probably. Eventually no one really knows what they are doing. There is always something in their skills set that has a gap. I uncovered it for the specialist kitchen builders and the architect.

Now I am going to try and reduce the amount of things that are taking my time. Have a feeling i have death by 1000 cuts with various things. So getting the house off the list is a nice start. The company will be the next cross and accounting requirements with it. By then end of the year the "professional" life will be over too.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Last month I had the cash from my house sale in my account. Other than the local council trying to get me to pay some extra taxes post move date there are now no items I need to deal with on the place.

After looking through all the mortgage options on the new place, we have decided against getting one. Although having the money at a low rate makes partial sense, I would rather not have the debt. Mainly because I don't know what to do with the cash just now. We will keep our overheads low instead.

For the upgrades to the flat we have been through and managed to seal all of the downstairs windows and seal all of the lights that were blowing in cold air. Unless the day is really cold the bedrooms manage to stay pretty warm all day. If it does get cold then heating on lowest settings manages to tick the heat up to an acceptable level.

We have some insulated curtains that still need to go up, still trying to figure out how best to put them in though since the downstairs windows are sloped. There will be some curtain making on the cards too as we bought the fabric rather than made ones. Painting of the bedrooms has now all been done as well. Two of the rooms need new carpets. However we are in no rush to do that we will make do with what we have.

We have had a few people into see the upstairs windows but have large divergences on what they think. Ideally I would like to put in new windows that are properly sealed. However it is a listed building so requires dealing with the council and authorities again, so we are not doing that. I suspect so kind of patch up will be done to fill in the majority of the gaps again. Then put in insulated curtains here as well. Due to the sizes though I'm not sure. Its about 25-30m worth of curtains.

Work for the system is still ongoing, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The company wind up process has now begun and I will step aside from the corporate world again. The only thing now that will bring me back in would be entering some kind of growth industry because its interesting. Or more likely if we want to use the skills to emigrate again (hopefully not). We still don't trust the position we are in.

I have been doing pretty good with the Japanese, the initial look at the characters again was not good. I didn't remember any of them. However after the first run through of something and seeing the story that was made for it. The second run through I have been remembering 90%-95% of them. I am expecting this to slip as I get to the last batch of items but it has been good seeing that I have just regressed back to stage 1 after that mental month back in May/June. By the time my work winds up I should be back to knowing all of the characters and ready to make a start on phrases and words.

Last item is health and fitness, I have been doing a 50 hour fast every week for the last 2 months. Been an interesting experiment. It is now pretty easy to make it that long without feeling much beyond the first evening hunger pangs.

Combined with this we forked out for a proper spin bike. With our building gym being closed for months I wanted something in the flat. Outside is fine but I know I'm not consistent enough for it. Every second day I do 30 mins as 5 min warm up 8 x 30 MAX...2 min rest. Then 5 min warm down. The other days I have been using the kettlebells we got. Generally doing a similar 20 min core set of something. I would like to go back swimming all of that is still closed with no obvious normality point.

The result is relative to the start of lockdown where my weight was creeping up. At one point I was at 81kg. I have brought this back down to around 75kg. The eventual target to get back just below the 70kg number. At that point I will take away the weekly fast I do and replace it with a single 72 hour each month. Although I eat healthy in general, I still like large portions so I know a regular diet is not my thing. The intermittent fasting was ok but I broke that too often.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Have had a busy few weeks. Work ramped up as the team approached a delivery deadline. Since March I have been tracking all of my daily productive work with pomodoros. The for each of the last 4 weeks have totaled 50 hours worth of pomodoros. Although fine for a while the overhead started to get a bit much and glad to be taking a few days off now. As an example a typical productive week I would do around 30 hours worth.

Depending on the point of view the productivity boost has paid off to some extent. All of the contracts of people in the team were up for renewal in December. About half of the people have not been offered an extension due to cost cutting measures.

I was offered an extension, however my initial response was to say no as with the pension contribution allowance used the taxes I now pay means I didn't think it was as worth it. The net position when accounting for fall in the £ and the increase in taxes means I wasn't exactly that far ahead of what I left in Switzerland. The amount of non-standard work the company needs to finish by mid next year the found some extra budget and increased the amount of pay to justify continuing.

At the point of contract end we "should" be coming out of the pandemic hopefully. Who knows at this point though. Had the world been open and I could go and do stuff as normal then I maybe would have stopped at the increased level. We are all stuck inside with not much to do over the winter though, I will just delay the full throttle other stuff.

Although my work was busy I managed to set aside 4 hours each week to keep my Japanese going. I have been back through all of the characters again and can now recognise the 2042 core characters with around 90% retention. There are a few I still get a bit muddled, at this point though I am happy to move on to the next step.

This weekend I finished modifying a set of flash cards that contain 5000 ish words with sentences. Initially I will run through them only trying to learn the specific words. Then after getting a portion of the way through start adding in the sentences as well. The aim will be to make decent progress on this before getting a tutor to help.

For the markets my returns have been broadly flat, gains being offset by losses and so on. I have started notice an awful low of material online of people showing their great portfolios of stock and the amazing returns. Not sure what is going to happen, but the whole world can't just be drive by half a dozen tech company returns. If a bump does come everything in my head says it will be brutal. Maybe I'm just too doom and gloom about it.

ertyu
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Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by ertyu »

Hey, you’ve stuck with the Japanese! 2000+ characters are nothing to scoff at, good work!

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Yeah it has been much harder to fit the time in alongside working. Having the easily digestible buckets of work though is helping as you can do 30 mins here 30 mins there that all add up. An example of one of my better weeks of Japanese relative to work (yellow work, green japanese)

Image

I am moving on to the grammar now, I have a book that gets easily constructured into a set of flash cards. Combining these core grammar constructions with the words I am going to be learning. It should help me with actually being able to read in Japanese. As opposed to trying to spot words I know in between the other components I can't follow.

Target will be to have this down by January, along with a decent splattering of words. In addition the attempt will be to only read it based on the Japanese pronunciation rather than the convert to English and figure out whats going on that way.

ertyu
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by ertyu »

I found sentence construction to be a very steep learning curve to my Indo-European subject-object-Verb ass :lol: good luck! :muscle:

guitarplayer
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by guitarplayer »

Good work with the Japanese! Just wanted to say thanks for mentioning the pomodoro technique, started using it recently, works great for me.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Pomodoros have been pretty good for me since I started basing my work around them. I'm very aware that I'm lazy and if I just left it to my own estimate...well I won't work. I don't do it quite as strict as others though. I start it and go until the end or until the point of interruption. I will only delete the time if I was working on something for less than 15 mins or so. The target has mostly been do 4 hours worth a day.

The grammar is a funny one. I'm not sure I have progressed much beyond "talk like yoda" yet. Still I can kinda see how patterns will fall into place.

Scott 2
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by Scott 2 »

What percentage of your work day is meetings vs. heads down thinking? I like the idea of Pomodoros, but in practice, am slow to start and hard to stop. I'd really want to string a couple together in succession to get something done.

If I've got 45 minutes from 9:15-10am, before 2 hours of meetings, I might as well not even bother trying anything complicated.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Being a contractor I don't have many meetings. Maybe an hour per day. Don't attend any of the large group/team meetings or all of the additional items that gradually creeps into peoples schedule. The meetings I do have are usually to outsource work or explain something specific to 1-2 people. So not as time wasted as a lot can be.

I go back and forth between what time I think is best. It is at 30 mins just now. The finishing point variaes between 30-50 mins. On occasion i can properly go over, however I have noticed I then deteriorate afterwards. it take me 7 hours to do 4.5-5 hours worth of pomodoros in a day. so about a 40-50% premium on actual time.

I've heard people say they work 10-12 hours days. Maybe, but that usually mean 12 hours at an office or around a screen. I have found 12 hour days for me really works out as 8 hours of work. It is debatable how productive that is, core tasks in a day is over in first 3 hours. Downhill from there. Probably just more honest about it than most. Based on the fact that I have only worked with a handful of people in my career that were as or similrly productive to me, i would doubt most people work when they say.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Wife just received a second VISA/Residence cards for the UK. Were able to prove we lived for 2 years in France and so should have been treated under the EU migration rules. The result is that now she has a "pre-settled status" card that is valid for 5 years. That brings us beyond the point where permanent residency is possible. More importantly it removes us from the requirement to apply in 2 years and then again in 5 years.

Bumped up against the HR department of the company again. To get me to come back as an "employee" they are required to pay holidays. This wasn't done in the last weeks round of payments. Trying to get it fixed before Christmas holidays. Initial questions to the department have been ignored. Depending on whether I get a response a more nuclear option of resigning may be needed. It is a weird system as the people I work with don't in general know of the interaction between myself and HR. I am sure it will be fixed, as they have asked me to work for another 6 months. Just "clever" automated systems being as "clever" as everything.

Wife has started up a small online company. Making the odd handmade product. Has been going pretty good for her so far. This week she hit the break even point on her initial investment. Sold a little over £600 worth of products, so nice low start up costs for what she was doing. There is a reasonable trickle of sales each day. A lot of that is the Christmas trade. Even if it doesn't continue she has gotten out the website setup, accounting, marketing, advertising skills out of it. Been funny Watching her shift to being more libertarian in the process has been quite funny. The 16 hours days 7 days a week to get things up and running will do that I guess.

As a review of the year we are going to finish 2020 in a pretty good position. Excluding any general thoughts on the Covid impacts of coming years.

Visa broadly sorted and the weight taken off our backs a little.
Work extended through to June and the hopefully end of lock downs point.
For the year net worth increase looking like it will be close to £250,000,
Wife has managed to get a business going and keeps her busy in new country.
New flat upgrades are in progress and it looks like the purchase price will be a good deal.
Learning of Japanese has made decent overall progress.

Goals for coming year:

Mainly getting a network up and running in the city. The plans we had were thrown out the window in Feb much like everyone else. Obviously we have a couple weeks left for the whole board to be thrown over again....but fingers crossed its a nice easy run to January.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Been starting to take a look at purchasing some land in the UK. Would quite like to have a small energy efficient home and gradually build up a fruit producing piece of land. Not in the proper homesteading way of a lot of people here, but more in the way that I like berries, apples, plums and would rather just have a source of my own.

There is a lot of places for sale that look as though they would be great. However that is when I stumbled across the same planning permission nonsense that takes over everything else in the UK. Main reason they say is to preserve the countryside for people and to make sure farming land is not just taken up by people with houses. To some extent I can see the merit of this. 

However, the reality is that 50% of Scotland's land is owned by around 500 or so people. A large portion of which are not resident in the country. A lot of these are "absentee" land owners, so they don't actually do anything with what they own.

The result is they have stopped individuals from starting a small holdings and all the land is now being hoarded by a few individuals. So the land is just another trade-able assets class rather than what they stated aim suggests.

I may keep looking however I don't want another fight with the bureaucrats. Is there anyone else who has tried to so something similar in the UK and had success?

Another choice would be to buy one that already has a building on it and just live in that. Issue there is I would be stuck with an old farm house which isn't what I want at all. Really though I am probably best just keep the money as a immediately accessible assets and not invest too heavily here.

But jealous of US counterparts who can just start up. Although my understanding is they are start to interfere more and more for you guys too. I guess with so much more land it is a much longer term project to control it all.

chenda
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by chenda »

JollyScot wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 7:46 am
However that is when I stumbled across the same planning permission nonsense that takes over everything else in the UK. 
It isn't 'nonsense'; you need such regulation in such a densely populated, urbanised country. Ownership is another matter. But property in Scotland is generally very cheap compared the rest of Britain, and there are many more rural building plots available as well as a lot of cheap dilapidated property ready for renovation or as a replacement dwelling, which sounds like what you want to do. Local property auction catalogues are a good place to start once you've narrowed down an area.

fingeek
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by fingeek »

JollyScot wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 7:46 am
However that is when I stumbled across the same planning permission nonsense that takes over everything else in the UK. 

Is there anyone else who has tried to so something similar in the UK and had success?
Yep pretty sad. You can get planning permission on land you don't own, so doing some sort of deal there might work out ("I'll pay you a little over the odds if I can get PP on it"). Might be worth reading homebuilding & renovation online/mag as that has some ideas about self-build too. Take a look at the Local Development Plan, which should show which areas the local council is/isn't prepared to allow development on. And probably stay away from greenbelt (maybe different in Scotland idk).

It's something I'd like to do too, as I think it would give a similar size house for less money, and potentially income if you can build say 4 houses on a plot.

JollyScot
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Yeah, ultimately would want 3-4 small, well insulated houses with 2-3 bedroom and small living space. Some kind of communal work space for anyone to use. Remaining land each person can use for something productive of their choice. Place for myself, then any family members otherwise some like minded folk who wanted to join. Will ask around for help on moving the needle with the system. I am not going to bend over backwards on the endless hoops this time round.

As for them not being nonsense, maybe you are conflating the need to have some kind of rules with the current rules being "not nonsense". Don't agree with that at all. System does not foster efficient upgrades and changes to the housing supply. Creates multiple tiers of people with bureaucrats being ultimate arbitrators. This leans towards the large companies as they have the funds, architects, lawyers to navigate the "nonsense".

Take my direct example. Required to stick to rules on what type of materials and the look of upgrades. All choices more expensive and less efficient than modern alternatives. Justification, maintain building for the benefit of the city. Fine, knew this when purchasing (although the retroactive thing changed my view a little).

Next door a large developer aiming to get approval for a modern tower block of studios that means no one will see my building anymore (2x the height). There in lies the problem, arbitrary nature of who it benefits and who does not. Why exactly are we required to stick to it when next door gets to do what they want? If you want the nonsense rules then everyone should adhere. If some are exempt then everyone should be exempt. If I could do what I want with my property then less of a concern what goes up next doors. As you know this is the process in advance and purchase accordingly.

In general there should be some rules, however the current system is nonsense and gives far too much power to central systems to decide.

chenda
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Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by chenda »

JollyScot wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:50 am
There in lies the problem, arbitrary nature of who it benefits and who does not. Why exactly are we required to stick to it when next door gets to do what they want? If you want the nonsense rules then everyone should adhere. If some are exempt then everyone should be exempt.
Whilst I'll readily agree the system has become too complex (and imo should be more design focused than policy driven) the same rules are applied to everybody, it's not arbitrary. Your property is a listed building, and rightly there are tighter rules concerning what you can do with it. The new build next door was presumably judged to be of acceptable design for that location. Whilst good design is somewhat subjective, you'll probably find the developer did not get what they want. They would have had to compromise on design and scale and many other things, just as you have.

I have this argument with householder clients all the time, most of whom are convinced that the bureaucrats are out to get them, and the big developers can do what they want either because they are scratching the right backs or have teams of killer lawyers at their disposal. Trust me, it's a myth.

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