DH wants to move to London as soon as DC go to uni

[GoutFine]

DH is from London and we moved to the Home Counties when DC were small for schools/ quality of life. I have always loved it and he has loved it but always missed London. We met in London but I was from another area of the UK originally so don't have the same emotional ties.

Now the DC are older and youngest l due to start uni next year DH has said very strongly he is desperate to move back to central London. He wants to sell our lovely family home and buy a "lovely" flat in zone 1, with spare rooms for the children.

We have lived where we are for 18 years and built up a great network of friends and I'm so emotionally attached to this area as this is all our children have ever known. If it were up to me I'd stay here and the DC would still have their family home to return to. In all likelihood they'd be living with us for a while after uni and we are within easy commuting distance to London (25 minutes into Marylebone and we are a short walk from the station).

He says I'm being unfair as he has lived here for so long and he belongs in London and wants to live back there. I feel my life is here end don't see why he must live in London when we are so close anyway. I mainly feel sad for the children I don't want them to lose their family home and the friendships and connections they have here.

WIBU to refuse to move? He is desperate to.

'I think he'll regret it when he can't walk at night or often even in the day without being on guard.'

Seriously?! WTF?!

Agree
total silence as I went out at 9am today
it’s 20.5 in my flat. Not had heating on since February. The £67 refund is more than my bills are. 1 bed Victorian mansion type flat.

Rent a place in London for six months. Take in a lodger or two at home to subsidise it.

People who have silence in central London, I'd be interested to know where you are, if anyone is willing to say.

i'm in an outer burb and the people noise is constant.

I’m Zone 1. Really quiet, parks close by. Walk / bus most places.
However don’t count on suddenly making lots of friends. Zone 1 is very transitory - most parents of my kids friends have left due to cost, space, were foreign and here a few years.
I’m in a small house; wouldn’t like to live in a flat. Feels like you’re regressing back to your 20s. The people in zone 1 with smallish flats (and the ones linked are nice but not big, no exciting features, no gardens) are generally younger, or more elderly who’ve been here 50/60 years. If you have a flat like that in your say 50s they it’s often just a London base and everyone clears out at the weekend / summer.
Generalising massively here of course.
If you decide to come and want new friends, I recommend a proper club, with societies and activities. The Reform, O&C etc. Good luck, really tricky.

I don’t think it will be the same London he left. How about renting your home out for a year or two and renting a flat in London?

…I assume that you chose your name in anticipation of making posts like this.

I would show him the replies from here. Then he gets to see all the arguments for and against.

I think renting is your best bet.

Also team DH here. I am running from the suburbs as fast as I can once DC leave home. My DH knows I've done my time in the commuter wastelands and I want my London life back.

I can’t speak to your location dilemma but I live somewhere for my H’s work and I HATE it. It’s the most boring place I’ve lived, I’ve sacrificed my career and pension and wasted 9yrs of my life so far with no way out. I have massive resentment over it and can’t stand him. He carries on oblivious and seemingly happy. I would think carefully before upending your life for somewhere you don’t want to live, although London would be preferable to where I am!

I don't blame him tbh, I grew up in South Bucks and if you're a city person it's incredibly dull! Plus having to drive everywhere for the smallest thing.

I live in an incredibly walkable city now and it makes me really happy to be able to walk to amazing shops, restaurants, parks and all the rest.

I know you're saying he could easily get to central London in half an hour, but then isn't the same true that you could get to GX really quickly from Zone 1? Especially if you lived somewhere near Marylebone.

London is a huge place and to walk from one area to another is some journey. Too much traffic is another reason to think twice as are the number of stabbings and street robberies. You will get older and not be as mobile. Will a flat be as wonderful when you have stairs to negotiate if the lift is out of order? You'll give up your garden and possibly not have a parking spot so friends will have to visit on public transport. As another poster said, could you afford a 3-4 bed flat in zone 1?
Good luck with your decision. I think you both ought to write a list of pros and cons then talk at length about compromises you might consider.
Your children won't be that bothered and wil be too busy with their own lives. They won't be living their lives according to what's best for you so you need to take a leaf out of their book.

Very true

Absolutely crikey. London so huge everytime we went anywhere bar our neighbourhood seemed to take nearly an hour and we were relatively centralish. Went there the other day same thing. Where we live now theatre with pre west end shows /bars/cinemas/ restaurants 5 min bus or 20 min walk. Less choice but still quite a lot of choice but sooo much easier and more pleasant to be home in minutes rather than chugging in bus / tube..

It works the other way you are only 25 mins away from your friends etc.
I think yabu as you've had what you want for 18 years, time to give what your dh wants a go.

Your home will become a hub ! Get lot's of sofa beds and spare beds.

You say that like it's a positive 😂

It is one of those things where neither of you are right or wrong.

But 30 minutes from London by train is a completely different lifestyle compared to living in London. While for some the 30min journey is a benefit but I don't think you can really say that it's so close thay it's no big deal.

You obviously need to talk at length about this.it will be the biggest decision you’ll likely make now.but 18 years.I think he needs a stark reality check of how much things have changed anywhere especially London in that length of time.

Why don't you rent out your family home and rent in London for a while before making life changing commitments? Tbf your children might actually appreciate having somewhere to live in central London where all the jobs are when they first leave uni. Personally though I wouldn't go to central London... rather somewhere like Wimbledon or Putney where you could feel less Londony but you're still very close to the centre

Could you have a trial run - renting out your house and renting a flat in central London for six months to see how it works out?

For 1m? One bedroom shoebox, possibly. Nowhere for the kids to come and stay, massive downsizing of everything you have plus the costs of actually moving house with agents, legal and stamp duty.

Smells of midlife crisis/pipedream to me. Tell him to identify properties in his desired area for the price you can afford after moving costs.

This is a big crunch time for many relationships. The main thing is to respect each others point of view. But you can only do that with all the facts. So he needs to be clear about what he wants and then do all the research: where must include practicalities like costs, bills, shopping, transport, car/no car.
If he can find something that looks feasible then suggest you agree to rent in that location for at least a year, renting out your own home to balance the costs.

Was it from the expression ‘like shit off a shovel’? If so I also thought it was an odd abbreviation of the expression!😂

You have to be careful when searching if you know little about leasehold on London flats.. You need to negotiate a lease extension before the lease length falls under 80 years. While it’s above 80 years there is a formula to work out the cost and it’s pretty straightforward. Below 80 years and you are at the mercy of the freeholder and it can be three times as much. I say this because while he could find somewhere in his desired area at his price point, it will probably be on a short (under 80 year) lease. If he wants to leave it to his kids there’s a big extra expense in lease renewal to be able to do that. Below 65 years and it becomes unmortgagable.
Basically 3-beds in Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia, Soho, Covent Garden with a decent lease length will be at least 1.3-1.5 million.
If you have 1 million you can get two beds and about 70 square meters in this area. There are two flats above me (I live 5 minutes from Oxford Circus) for sale right now, about 67 square meters, for 800,000 each but they are in the eaves of a 1902 block and have compromised head hights in places, otherwise they would be 1 million each. Saw a nice 2-bed on Cambridge Circus last week for 850,000, I thought it was a bargain. Anyway, my point is for £1 million you can get a nice two-bed flat with a decent lease length, very central. You won’t get a third bedroom, you won’t get any garden (but you wouldn’t move to the West End for a garden anyway). You might get a balcony/rooftop recreational area, but if you do you probably won’t get a lift, so,
depending on your age, you might wonder how many flights of stairs you want to climb.
Also, if you have a car you need to find out about residents’ parking eligibility—Westminster (Fitzrovia, Soho, Marylebone, Mayfair) is far more generous about this than car-hating Camden (Fitzrovia east of Charlotte St, Bloomsbury) where resident’s parking (the permit, not the spaces) seems unobtainable these days.

No way would I move back to London. This would be a dealbreaker for me. Sounds like a mid life crisis to me.