Buying a leasehold flat: the checklist
The lease length, ground rent, service charge, building safety and who runs the block. What to check on a leasehold flat, in order, with the law as it stands in October 2026.
Read the guide →Buying a home, explained properly
The things that hold up a purchase, decided in plain English. No jargon, no yields, no pretending it's simple when it isn't.
How to research an area before you buy
Flood, crime, noise, air, schools and planning, checked in the right order. What each public dataset can tell you about an area, and where each goes fuzzy.
Read the guide →Red flags in a listing, and what they actually cost
Most listing red flags cost you a bigger deposit, a recurring bill, or nothing at all. Here's how to tell which is which, and why the expensive ones are rarely visible in the photos.
Read the guide →Stamp duty for first-time buyers: worked examples, and the £500,000 cliff
First-time buyers pay no stamp duty up to £300,000 and 5% up to £500,000. One pound over and the relief goes completely. Worked examples, rates as at October 2026.
Read the guide →How to check planning applications near a property before you buy
What's been approved next door, what could be built without permission, and what work on the house itself was never signed off. How to check the planning register.
Read the guide →Buying a flat above a shop or takeaway: the mortgage problem, and what to check
A flat above a shop is often fine. Above a takeaway, bar or restaurant, lots of lenders say no. Why it's the use downstairs that matters, and why it can change.
Read the guide →Air quality and NO₂: what the numbers mean when you're buying a home
Almost every home in London is within the legal limit for NO₂ and almost none meets the WHO's health guideline. What the two numbers mean, and how to check a street.
Read the guide →Your survey came back bad. How do you renegotiate?
How to turn a bad survey into a lower price without losing the house: what's binding when, what to ask for, and how to put it to the seller in England and Wales.
Read the guide →Share of freehold vs leasehold vs commonhold: what you'd actually own
Share of freehold still has a lease underneath it, commonhold has no lease at all and almost nobody has one, and the listing rarely says which is which. The three tenures, and what each means for you.
Read the guide →Noise: railways, flight paths, main roads and pubs. What you can check, and what nobody measures
Every public noise map is modelled, not measured, and each source has its own map, its own law and its own hour of the day. How to check a property for noise before you buy, source by source.
Read the guide →Ex-local authority flats: the honest pros and cons
Ex-council flats are often better built and cheaper than the private block next door. The real issues are lending, the council as your freeholder, and Right to Buy strings. What to check.
Read the guide →Council tax bands: why yours is probably a 1991 guess, and how to challenge it
Every council tax band in England is an estimate of what the home was worth in April 1991. How the bands work, what the VOA actually accepts as evidence, and the six-month window a buyer gets.
Read the guide →Ground rent: what the 2022 Act changed, what's still only proposed, and what you're actually paying
Ground rent is peppercorn on new leases, whatever the lease says on old ones, and the £250 cap you've read about isn't law. The rules by lease date, as at September 2026.
Read the guide →Buying next to a railway line: what actually matters
About one listing in five around London sits within 100 m of a track. Train noise and vibration are different problems, and only one of them has a cheap fix.
Read the guide →School catchments: how they actually work
A catchment area gives your child priority, not a place. How admissions really decide, why the distance moves every year, and what to ask before you offer.
Read the guide →Shared ownership: what it actually costs, and what happens when you sell
You pay a mortgage, rent on the share you don't own, and 100% of the service charge. What staircasing really costs, and what happens when you sell.
Read the guide →What an EPC rating actually tells you about your bills
An EPC is a model of the building, not a forecast of your heating. What the letter measures, why a C is the average rather than a good result, and how to read the certificate properly.
Read the guide →"Near a station" means nothing. Here's what to measure instead
No rule says what "near a station" has to mean, and the distance on a listing isn't a walk time. The five things that actually decide your commute.
Read the guide →Cracks in walls: when it's subsidence and when it isn't
A crack scale surveyors actually use, what really causes subsidence, and how to tell a genuine structural problem from a wall that just needs redecorating.
Read the guide →How to check flood risk properly before you buy
The government's flood checker gives you a rating, not an answer. What the four bands actually mean, why surface water is the risk most buyers miss, and the checks worth doing.
Read the guide →North-facing gardens: how much does it actually matter?
Why a north-facing garden is a trade-off rather than a fault, what the sun actually does in a UK winter, what the price gap is really measuring, and how to test a specific garden.
Read the guide →Damp: rising, penetrating and condensation, and how to tell them apart
Three different problems get called damp, and they have three different fixes. How to tell which one you're looking at, and why a meter reading proves less than you'd think.
Read the guide →How to check crime rates in an area before you buy
Why the police crime map isn't showing you where crimes happened, what the categories hide, and how to read the numbers for an area you're buying in.
Read the guide →Short leases: when the 80-year rule actually matters
Why a lease under 80 years costs much more to extend, what lenders do about it, and why the 2024 reforms haven't fixed it yet. Position as at August 2026.
Read the guide →Which house survey do you actually need?
RICS Level 1, 2 and 3 explained: what each one really inspects, why your lender's valuation isn't a survey, and how to choose without overpaying.
Read the guide →What estate agent listing language actually means
Why listings are written the way they are, what the vaguer phrases usually signal, and why the things a listing leaves out tell you more than the words in it.
Read the guide →Service charges: what's normal, and what's a red flag
What a service charge actually covers, the £250 consultation rule that caps what you can be billed, and the questions worth asking before you offer on a flat.
Read the guide →EWS1 forms explained: what buyers of UK flats actually need to know
What an EWS1 form is, when a lender will ask for one, what A1 to B2 mean, who pays, and what to do if the flat you want doesn't have one.
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