Homeowners help please :)

[Linzi]

We went and looked at a gorgeous showhome tonight and we both loved it We're going back to look around again on Saturday and discuss finances but was just wondering (as Im a complete house boying n00b!) what other monthly outgoings do you have thats different to renting?

We currently pay for

Rent
Gas & Leccy
Water
Council tax
Contents insurance

I think thats all we pay out towards the house... all I can think if extra we'd have to get if we buy is buildings insurance as well?

Thank you sorry its such a stupid question we're just trying to budget to see if its a good idea xx

 

[Rhi_Rhi1]

I think their is separate insurance for boiler cover but it might be on some house insurances x

 

[readyORnot]

if it's a leasehold property you'll have ground rent and service charges.

apart from that there's not much difference other than your buildings insurance and knowing that if anything goes wrong or needs replacing and so on you'll have to stump up for it yourselves. Given that you have children you may want to have a boiler servicing contract including annual gas safety check (compulsory for a landlord or foster carer but completely up to you if you own your home).
You may require life insurance & critical illness cover to take care of the mortgage in the event of the unforseen.
TV Licence if your landlord currently takes care of this.
Obviously if your landlord pays for anything else like internet or cable this will become your resonsibility as well.

 

[Wirral_Kitty]

Yeah, just your buildings cover (legally required)...which usually comes in a package as buildings and contents insurance....I pay around £140 a year for mine and thats with about £75k contents cover too. It may be handy to set up a side account though and put money in it, if you can afford to, for things that spring up like your fence blowing down, boiler checks, roof leaking etc etc as these would have been fixed previously, now its all down to you! x

 

[Loui1001]

We have what's alreay been mentioned with life assurance, income protection and critical illness cover too x

 

[dizz]

Building insurance, we thought we had a yearly token ground rent but it looks like the previous owners bought the liability away when they were doing the sale though... and of course the fact that since we moved in everything that can possibly go wrong with the place has done.

And I'd get some form of boiler checks budgetted in (be it boiler cover or just getting a bloke out to do it) - you've got a lot of protection in rented houses from carbon monoxide poisoning (thank God, I had a very narrow brush with it as a student and if the gas cert hadn't run out the week it did we'd very likely be dead by now) that you don't have if it's your own place.

Hubby's got life insurance cover since his salary covers the mortgage - if I died he'd be bereaved, if he died I'd be snookered utterly.

 

[booflebump]

Income protection, critical illness cover and life insurance are pretty important when you have a mortgage to cover for every eventuality

 

[Linzi]

so confusing! but thanks for all the help Its a new build so i dont know if we'll need boiler cover or if there will be some kind of guarantee on it. guess we need to talk to the builers.

going to see it again tomorrow, i am excited i can see us living therwe and being very happy x

 

[Baby France]

I have to pay the leasehold too....but its like £5 a year.

We also have life insurance too and mortgage insurance (look on money saving expert...it doesn't cost us much considering what we would get)

You've mentioned everything. We just have general 'wear and tear' too. But considering its a showhome/newbuild...you really wouldn't have to consider those options

 

[MrsVenn]

Bills we have are:

Mortgage, gas, electricity, water, council tax, life insurance, buildings insurance, contents insurance, tv licence, broadband and phone with Virgin (we have freeview for TV), boiler cover (we've had to have a new one fitted this year so have taken out protection for it now).

Other outgoings - running 2 cars (ins, tax, service), 2 mobile phones (basic contracts though), savings, food, travel costs, childcare

Then every day to day stuff needed!

 

[gills8752]

My bills each month are

mortgage
gas/elec combin
buildings & contents insurance
tv license
home phone and broadband
life insurance (per person)
Life assurance (a policy to pay out money to spouse if one of us should die to cover costs of bringing up the children)
car insurance


I don't have boiler cover - dont see the point in spending hundreds a year when anything that's gone wrong with my boiler hasn't cost anywhere near that per year.
House insurance will cover everything in your property (tvs, gadets etc) and things you take out of your property (bikes/sports equipment etc) so don't bother with individual insurance for items.

Check whether your property/and is freehold or leasehold, majority of people are freehold, but like others said, you may have a charge is leasehold and the owner of the land may terminate your leasehold at any given time so is more risky than freehold.