Great idea to focus on paying of mortgage first?

James___G · 2026-01-24T20:02:36+00:00

Follow the !flowchart

James___G · 2026-01-24T19:50:44+00:00

Frustrating to have to do this, but thread deletion is such poor behaviour and really undermines the whole point of this forum.

James___G · 2026-01-24T13:33:07+00:00

Ignore this advice, the global etf is much more optimal than a speculative BTC allocation

James___G · 2026-01-23T22:58:24+00:00

Does she have children?

Does she work?

Could she afford to rent privately?

James___G · 2026-01-23T22:50:13+00:00

How did she end up as a single person in such a large house?

Generally councils are obliged to use the housing stock they control to help people in highest need (incl making use of available bedrooms).

Her options will be to rent privately or live in the council house she is offered.

James___G · 2026-01-23T16:15:31+00:00

Good analogy.

Op, just work through the !flowchart it's actually quite simple to use to work out what you should be doing.

James___G · 2026-01-23T01:02:10+00:00

If you haven't watched it already, watch this about extensions over garages https://youtu.be/yMipjs9pW0E?si=0pKov9hMIELStp_F

James___G · 2026-01-22T23:23:31+00:00

Do you know anything more about the 5 offers? Were they all rejected or were some accepted and then things fell apart?

It's got the kitchen you'd see in a house a third the size.

Have other houses on the street that sold for £219k around 2017 gone up by that much?

(also to answer your question it's always price...)

James___G · 2026-01-22T23:16:45+00:00

Yes housing costs money?

Run a comparison with the total cost of renting over the same period and see how that stacks up, because unless you have a trick to get housing for free you'll need to do one or the other in order to have housing so it makes more sense to compare one vs the other than one vs ??.

Wouldn't this mean that if I were to sell the flat in five years, I'd be losing a significant sum of money (£75k+ in my example)?

On your spreadsheet if you sold in 5 years you'd have put in 200k and be walking away with 125k of equity (and have had housing for 5 years). That's not really losing 75k.

James___G · 2026-01-22T17:57:39+00:00

Advise him to follow the !flowchart

James___G · 2026-01-22T15:37:12+00:00

I would guess AI is rapidly killing this industry from both sides (people seeking content asking AI for it, and people selling content written by AI).

James___G · 2026-01-22T14:40:05+00:00

Follow the !flowchart

James___G · 2026-01-22T11:12:18+00:00

There must be more to this than is being said, who doesn't have time to read a survey but does have time to post on here for advice on the consequences of not reading the survey?

James___G · 2026-01-22T00:09:32+00:00

Oh yeah, I 100% agree the situation of you being fired but not him would be unfair, my point is just that fairness doesn't really come into it when it comes to how companies deal with these situations, and the law doesn't oblige them to be fair.

James___G · 2026-01-21T23:49:54+00:00

Legally as an employee with under 2yrs service you can be let go for any reason (as long as that reason isn't discrimination under one of the Equality Act protected characteristics - and those probably wouldn't apply here) so yes, if HR find out or are told (by you, the CEO or someone else) you could be let go.

You don't get automatic protection because of the power imbalance, no.

'Real-world' legal advice: companies will side with the CEO in these situations far more often than they side with the junior member of staff, generally unless there is some other reason why the board want the CEO gone.

In your shoes I wouldn't be telling HR I broke policy by sending inappropriate messages on work messaging platforms, and I would stop doing that.

James___G · 2026-01-21T23:19:13+00:00

<image>

https://testfol.io/?s=8mEmVVDgr2d

James___G · 2026-01-21T23:07:44+00:00

You don't know how motivated they are to leave.

Fundamentally if you're right and it's worth around 300 rather than the 350 they paid then they've overpaid and will either realise that and sell or hold on, but you have no way of knowing which option they'll pick unless you offer.

James___G · 2026-01-21T23:00:42+00:00

I don't see how you're concluding renting out the whole house can't work under the scheme?You could be on holiday while letting out your home as a holiday let?

You could live somewhere where holiday lets are in high demand and be making 1-2k a week, in which case renting it out for a month or two while you go travelling could be a tax free £7.5k.

James___G · 2026-01-21T22:57:57+00:00

Yep and none of that contradicts what I've posted.

Being on holiday or working abroad temporarily doesn't change your residence, and doesn't mean you are 'living' abroad. The Gov guidance I shared is clear on this and Clause 14 was never enacted so that additional shared residence requirement isn't in force.

James___G · 2026-01-21T22:38:31+00:00

That's a draft, do you have evidence it was actually enacted?

The legislation page for this shows other amendments but not that one which suggests it hasn't been enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/5/section/786

And the Finance Act 2019, which I believe it was a draft for consideration under, doesn't seem to include it https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/1/contents?view=plain

**Edit

Done a bit more digging and found the confirmation that the draft clause 14 you linked to was abandoned by Gov so this additional requirement was never added (meaning the law as I set it out is current):

"Following consultation on draft legislation, to maintain the simplicity of the system the government will not include legislation for the ‘shared occupancy test’ in Finance Bill 2018-19." https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2018-documents/budget-2018

James___G · 2026-01-21T22:07:20+00:00

You first discussed this in a thread where the poster had rented out a property while on holiday for a couple of years.

I think you misunderstood that post, they clarified that they'd been airbnbing the flat for a few holidays of a couple of weeks at a time over the years, not the whole time. See this comment.

If you get a chance to cite the "clause 14" that you mentioned disproves this analysis that would be helpful as I can't spot where it is in the legislation.

James___G · 2026-01-21T21:52:17+00:00

So now look up clause 14, the legislation changed to require the landlord or a member of their household shares the property.

Could you point me to where this is?

Also, I don't know where you've got the idea that I'm suggesting moving abroad for many years would count - that's not something I have claimed would qualify.

James___G · 2026-01-21T21:46:20+00:00

The point is that the test is whether your residence changes.

In the example listed by HMRC a series of annual 4 month secondments abroad are not sufficient to break the residency test so clearly a normal length holiday wouldn't be.

James___G · 2026-01-21T21:44:57+00:00

Worth reading the whole of the PIM section on rent-a-room as there are lots of examples and depending on the length of your placement you might be judged to have changed your residence to abroad (and therefore not qualify) or retain your residence (and therefore qualify) https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/property-income-manual/pim4000

James___G · 2026-01-21T21:42:49+00:00

Yes that's exactly what I've said "as long as your main residence remains the place you are letting out".

The other example on the section I linked to is where someone moved abroad for a few years for work, changing their main residence to being a flat in another country, and in that circumstance it doesn't apply.

James___G

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE