Grand Designs - the child's name is Beaver???

[deaconblue]

WTF
Apologies to anyone who has a daughter called Beaver that I have offended...

You are right tissy. None of us locals can understand how he got away with so much. We think he probably did the "well you know I've sold it to a TV company and it's going to make you look bad if I don't get my way"

There was a lot more going on there than was shown on the show .........

What I didn't understand was the way they glossed over him saying "we discovered the insurance had lapsed". Do people really live like that? In a highly flammable building without any knowledge of whether their insurance is valid or not . He made it sound like it was outside his control.

And the mortgage payments on £800,000 must have been at least £5,000 per month - that is mindboggling to me - more than 1.5 times as much as our combined monthly income!!!!!

Bunch of idiots if you ask me.

Maybe he never had any insurance in the first place??!!

must be loaded though
Most mortage companies would clal in a mortgage if you had no insurance, it's a legal part of you getting a mortgage.
I'm sorry I know it's not as nice as when they first had it
But I liked it - no so much the glass back bit but watching the thatching was gorgeous.

Oh I wish I'd seen this! Wasted an hour watching New Street Law... Is it repeated?

Our buildings insurance lapsed the other day, and we didn't notice for a day or 2. Actually, DH assumed they'd just renew it automatically if we didn't do anything (like most car insurers do), and they didn't. Had a very jittery 'what if' kind of moment. So it can happen.

We were about the baby with no hard hat too.

Ahhh but what if they gave you two options:

1. More expensive mortgage which included insurance
2. Cheaper mortgage, but needed to sort out your own insurance

and you chose the second option??

Usandnosleep: it aint repeatable! Google "Dirty Sanchez" (and also "Dirty Beppe" if you're are a longtime fan of Eastenders).

Yes, but do you live in a thatched building where insurance is such a majorly important thing? And all the insurers I have insurance with send reminders out about a month before it is due.

I'd love to know who the lenders were - "you say your last home burnt down and you had no insurance? Here's £250,000 sir".

That was to Jackieno by the way.

I would imagine that when you are mortgaging a thatched property, the lender would insist on seeing a copy of the insurance docs even if they didn't insist you insured through them.

I suppose they must have been mega rich, and perhaps there are different rules...

emsiewill, no we don't. They did send out a reminder, but DH didn't read it properly (and I never read it at all). So our fault entirely.

Biba is massively worse than Beaver. It's like calling your child Jane Norman or something. Or Army & Navy.
Didn't look as if they'd be able to open the huge bedroom windows in the summer. Nice.
Agree, the thatch was spesh.

I couldn't sleep in a bedrooom like that - would love it as a living room, but I need it to be dark-ish at night. Just imagine in midsummer - you'd be woken up by the sunlight at 4am or something.

and lol at BakedPotato's 'like calling your child Jane Norman or something' .

I worried when our buildings insurance came up for renewal, nagged dh to make sure we'd got it done, and it turned out our company does just renew it for you if you don't get in touch. They must have been with someone else or not paid by direct debit or something. God. I'd have vomited too! Although I do wonder whether they'd been having their chimney swept regularly...

Thought Kev was doing his usually extracting every ounce of drama from the build - crane was OK so why make such heavy weather of it? And clearly the move back from London to the new house was straightforward, so why do such a doom-laden voiceover?

Couldn't understand their finances either, how come mortgage company didn't call in the loan on the burned down house? Happened to someone round here whose house was flattened by the Buncefield explosion. Insurance paid out but mortgage company took every penny, leaving him with nothing.

And that's what I don't get - you (JN) are acknowledging that it was your responsibility to know when your insurance was due. He talked about it as though it had been someone else's responsibility "we discovered the insurance had lapsed".

Although maybe he had outsourced his insurance renewal needs to a PA or something...perhaps that's what you do when you are rich. Still, I think I would have checked.

And they still had a house in London so I didn't feel too sorry for them - at least they had somewhere to live.

Franke, did you really think Kev hated it? I thought he flipping loved it, except for the chimney maybe
He droned on about it being 'his kind of house' and expressing a desire to move in
I'd never heard him say that sort of thing before
Gone off him now

I thought they were told they HAD to sell the London house to raise the £200,000 they needed to pay for the new cottage.

Yes the London house was sold at the end. Sheryl and Biba had to move in with friends until the cottage was finished. I wonder which bank eventually lent him the £200k which then jumped to £235k when 17 others refused him.

"they have ruined a lovely old thatched New Forest cottage" Not exactly, given that it had burnt down!

I thought the baby was called Beaver for a moment too and thought "WTF??!! Oh, Biba..."

I lol at Beaver and then immediately thought someone will mention it on mn

I did mention in my message that it had burnt down soupdragon!

Oh, it just made me giggle, LitCountry. At least they didn't build a glass and concrete box monstrosity