Unexpected bills

Our bathroom flooded back in April, a leak from the back of the loo. We had no flushing toilet for a fortnight, and lots of DGC visiting. Eventually got a plumber and had to have new toilet, so went for a complete new suite. £5,000. Then the guttering on our roof leaned. £2,000. Then the new toilet was unsteady, original plumber ignored my emails, local chap fixed it to the floor, £100. I could go on.

Can I just say Fran I hope you aren’t on a water meter.
My D had a similar small trickle which she ignored for a very long time, not really being able to afford a plumber.
She received a very large bill for water eventually ,it was well into four figures, she quickly found the money for a plumber after that.
She is still paying off the arrears on the water bill.

This is a good time for a post such as yours fran, I was only wondering today how much I would be able to transfer from my normal bank account to my savings account, just for maintenance jobs

I too have a monthly list for annual one-off payments such as chimney sweeping, insurances, servicings,cycling insurance etc. It adds up so quickly and I never added in a contingency fund for jobs such as the toilet cistern. I tended to feed in from a savings account on an as-needed basis but my savings are dwindling and have been ever since I moved

I cannot procrastinate about that any more and will be working out a monthly amount, to include the one-off unexpected items that may happen. It is bound to be a wake up call

At the start of the first lockdown my cistern failed. To cut a long story short, I needed a new £5.0 replacement part. However in order to do this my tiles needed to come off, the entire cistern replaced and because this didn’t work with the existing loo the entire toilet had to be replaced. Total cost £1600.00. And no loo for 6 weeks!
The plumber who I’ve used for 15 years showed me what was going on and why the replacement parts wouldn’t fit together and he had to drive to Sheffield to find matching replacement tiles. All because The original bathroom fitter hadn’t made an inspection hatch to access the cistern. Grim!

I found this general guide to house maintenance costs, dependent on property age

Less than 10 years 1% of home value

10 to 20 years 2% of home value

20 to 30 years 3% of home value

More than 30 years 4% of home value

That seems a pretty fair guesstimate

That can’t be a yearly amount Karmalady can it ? our maintenance costs would work out to be more than our pensions!!

I agree, I have just done the maths and it is a large sum of money.
Too much by far for me.

Our block of flats has a monthly charge to a factoring company and also to a contingency fund. The flats are over fifty years old now so there always seems to be something needed attending to. I suppose if we were still in our house we'd have occasional repairs etc to pay for.

I would not take those amounts as yearly sums. I would take it as a contingency fund, just in case. It can be expensive to maintain your own home to a good standard.

I found this checkatrade guide, which is already out of date ie ds paid more than that to get a roof tile replaced but the guide does give an outline idea

www.checkatrade.com/blog/cost-guides/property-maintenance-cost/

My home is new build 2019 and there is no maintenance right now but I will be putting a contingency fund in place. Bearing in mind that material costs have skyrocketed. House has gone up a lot in value so somewhere between 3-4 thousand will be enough. However I will need to add to that sum over time due to inflation

We are so lucky with our plumber. He will come quickly in an emergency and his charges are so reasonable. He was the first tradesman we booked when we bought this house and has bern so reliable, and also passed on names of other local tradesmen too.
A big bill can be a real shock.

I tell a lie, I did have the whole interior painted last year. I paid per job so adding it all together cost me over £2500. No wonder I am careful to not put dirty marks on the walls.

I had the best decorator and the initial builders paint was thin, so yes it was essential maintenance and in fact taking in all the bits and bobs I needed to keep the house maintained, oils, tools etc (I do much myself) eg I did not need a plumber to stop a kitchen tap dripping, or to fix a tap wobble or to fix a vent pipe to the roof vent

That takes me within spitting distance of the £3000 for one year

Karmalady a useful guide for anyone buying an old house, have the money in the bank before you move in and then you can afford to do all the things that the surveyor missed!

We have been here for 24 years and given all the work we had to do when we first moved in I guess that we have spent almost the 4% over the years.

Better start saving again because things are starting to wear out….

Think I will need to start to make a monthly allocation for such repairs in the future.

Brilliant. We've always saved to a 'rainy day' in home repair. Our old home when we bought over 60 years ago, has required many jobs through the years.

Oopsadaisy1

Karmalady a useful guide for anyone buying an old house, have the money in the bank before you move in and then you can afford to do all the things that the surveyor missed!

We have been here for 24 years and given all the work we had to do when we first moved in I guess that we have spent almost the 4% over the years.

Better start saving again because things are starting to wear out….

I very much agree with that, having the money in the bank before moving in. Not just an old house to be fair, a brand new build eats money, although that would not be classed as maintenance

I do know that I am aiming to ring fence about £4000 into a maintenance account and thereafter, I will do my best to build up some savings again in my normal savings account. Just thinking about normal basic maintenance, such as boiler service, flue sweeping, stove service, gutter cleaning, even weed removing on drives. It soon adds up, with normal wear and tear on top of that

I have decided to put aside a 80pound per month for maintenance. Many of the things mentioned by Karmalady do not apply when in a flat. So, boiler service, gutter cleaning, weed removing all comes out Maintenance Charge. At present I pay £1400 pa, but this will go up come our AGM in March.

I have had a very expensive year (new kitchen, new power chair, etc.), so have not planned anything for 2023 as I hope to re-build my savings somewhat then,

The biggest extra expense that could occur would be a replacement boiler, (24/7 service also comes out of flat's maintenance contract), each year that it is serviced I am told that there is nothing wrong with it - but who knows??????

I have also taken action. I went onto mse and have discovered that halifax, my bank, have a regular saver at 4.5% interest for 12 months. I would never have known.

It took a few minutes to open that and my first deposit goes in tomorrow. Belt tightening ahead for the 12 months but I really don`t want to drain any more from my old-age savings and I am saving the maximum to get to my target of £3000 by next year. To be future -maintenance- secure will be worth the sacrifice now. Thanks for the thread Fran, it did make me think

We have an annual maintenance contract that covers the boiler and central heating, plumbing, drains and electrics, with no excess. I mutter about the cost of it at every renewal, but looking at these figures I can see its value. This year it’s covered a new kitchen tap, a major boiler repair that took 4 hours, replacement of a leaking radiator, and an electrical fault, as well as the boiler service. In 2021 we had no problems at all, and I was wondering if the contract was worth it - I’m so glad that I didn’t cancel.

Prices can vary a lot though. Checkatrade in the link posted are quoting £150 for gutter cleaning. We have a man who calls every year to do ours and charges between £20 and £30, depending on his mood. This year he fixed a slipped roof tile and sealed the gutter joint it had knocked out of alignment and only charged us £40 for the lot.

That was a bargain maggiemay, ds paid £200 to get one fixed in glasgow

Anyway, today I have reached clarity and bit the bullet. I already had a list of estimated additonal costs over the year but I did it properly and carefully today. 12 columns november to november

I am going to keep this going forward year on year. I have estimated for the 12 months from today, a simple amount in pencil for each month. A bit eye opening when you see the high outgoings some months, february, july especially.

Now, with a fixed income and settled in my new home with no forseeable extras to buy. It has made sense for me to estimate expenditure ahead, not backwards. It was a wake up call to do this

That was a bargain maggiemay, ds paid £200 to get one fixed in glasgow

I know, we’re very lucky. The trouble is that our gutter man comes over from the next county every year and is older than me, so might not do it much longer.

I have to have 3 fillings next week. £360 thanks very much!

Karmalady. Are you sure about 4.5% at Halifax. I’ve just looked and 2% was the highest I could see. There are a couple at .45%
I got quite excited thinking I might be able to make a bit of money this year.

I was shocked but not really surprised at how much I paid yesterday to have my new cooker fitted in for me.
The cost was £110 for fitting an electric double oven and the guy was here for 15mins he had a further 6 installations to do before he finished his work last night,his phone never stopped the whole time he was here booking in jobs to be done.
Luckily I put a set amount away every month for emergencies which needs topping up now.

I can empathise with unexpected bills. We are lucky with a handyman who does lots of jobs here. He’s just painted my bedroom for £170 (I bought the paint). I really should start a personal maintenance fund. I live in a small block of 18 flats on 3 floors with a lift. Living on the ground floor I never need to use it. We have had our annual notification of the maintenance charge 😳 As to be expected there is the 8% increase but the lift needs refurbishing and theres not enough in the reserve fund with £65k required, to be collected over the next 2 years. My charge for 2023 has increased by £145.50 per month. It does go to a vote but being realistic voting ‘no’ is not really an option even if I don't use the lift. I’m still reeling with the shock.

They say things come in threes! The handyman put his foot through the wooden steps down from the garage, it seems a few treads are rotton. The storm we had last week took ridge tiles off the roof, and some numpty in a van backed into the garden wall, which the builder says is unsafe now and will have to come down. I asked him what was the best to do with the wall, his answer, take it down and put a fence there because some idiot will do it again! Oh well, there are no pockets in shrouds!