Buying a house

This is my experience buying a house in London.

Freehold vs leasehold

First thing to know is that there's Freehold, and Leasehold. Flats are almost always Leasehold. Leasehold is kind of like buying a flat in Sweden, except that the house is controlled by a faceless corporation that charges whatever service charges they feel like, have a bunch of restrictions, and no real incentive to do a good job.

You'll get a knock on the door from some guy saying he's there to change the smoke detectors, or inspect the pipes, or whatever.

Every Leasehold property has a Freeholder who does not care about you, who is the one who really owns the place.

My experience in Sweden is with renting and owning a flat in a BRF that encompassed just that building, so it was owned and managed by the people who actually live in the building.

You could put it like this: There are three parties involved in owning a flat:

1. You. You paid a lot of money to have exclusive right to your flat, be allowed to drill in walls and do all kinds of things inside your flat that a rental would not allow.

2. The owner of the building.

3. The people who manage the building.

In Sweden (2) is you and your neighbours. This means that for small houses (3) is often also you and your neighbours. Your voice is heard, and you get to vote about who actually manages the building.

For Leaseholds in the UK (2) is "The Freeholder". You rent your right to have your Leasehold. It costs a few thousand to renew that lease for a couple of decades. It's normally kept at around 100 years, but if it goes down below 80 it starts getting really expensive, and you may not be able to get a mortgage. And people won't want to buy it, so this could screw your investment.

Since the Freeholder isn't the collection of Leaseholders or inhabitants, and the Freeholders decide how the building is managed, the only selection criteria for building management is "as cheap as possible for the Freeholder", with no consideration at all for the Leaseholders.

So in short: get a Freehold if you can.

Solicitor

In Sweden the only third party in buying a house is the estate agent. In the UK aside from the estate agent both you and the seller have a solicitor. All communication between buyer and seller goes via these lawyers.

You probably have to chase the solicitor, to make sure they actually do what they're supposed to do. E.g. when I contacted the solicitor asking if some final paperwork is done (after waiting weeks), then coincidentally it "just" arrived, and they'll send it via post today. This is apparently normal, and one cannot just wait and assume the job will be done.

We had to change solicitor. We originally chose the one recommended by the estate agent, but turns out they were not registered in the system for our chosen mortgage provider. And they would not be able to register, either. So we had to switch.

Our first solicitor had a different issue, too. Because of covid this was all done over the phone, email, and post. We were going to send a copy of basically all our IDs and financial information, so we wanted to check up on the lawyer. But we couldn't find them on the SRA website. SRA is where all solicitors are registered. The phone number and company of a person with the name of our solicitor did not match. Turned out to be a screwup at the SRA (Solicitor's Regulatory Authority).

How bidding works

In Sweden everything is an auction, and you can see the highest bid. The UK has auctions, but most are listed for a price. based on that price you can put in an offer, that's higher or lower. That bid is then accepted or not.

Mortgage

Barclays

Their website says really low interest rate, so we tried to go with them. Then later in the process they bump the rate and are no longer the cheapest. So we ghost them.

Three separate people said that we could just drop by to have our IDs checked. So we go there. Nope, we need an appointment. WTF? Appointment for 9am Friday .

Called Barclays. Again after waiting in a queue for 30 minutes a lady routed us into the void after speaking incoherently.

At least we got confirmation that my girlfriend doesn’t need to confirm her ID since she's a prior customer.

The lady on hte phone says she’ll call branch managers and will have them call us, since she can’t access their diaries. Sigh.

Got call from “Dean”, who gave his number and (due to Covid) said for us to call when we're outside, and we get our IDs checked.

Habito, a mortgage broker

We used habito to find the best deal. Turned out to be Platform. Aside from Platform taking 15 working days (because covid) to even look at our application. The delay coused the seller to get worried, despite us keeping them up to date on the status.

Survey

After getting your offer accepted you schedule (and pay for) a survey. This was the most (only) problem-free third party. The guy showed up on time, texted status updates, and quickly prepared a survey document about any problems. The only annoyance is that we're not allowed to share anything about the survey with anyone. This seems like a scam so that if the purchase falls through another buyer will have to do another survey, and potentially pay the same person to go and inspect the same property again.

Exchange and completion

The two most key events are "exchange" and "completion".

"Exchange" is when contracts are signed, and a 10% deposit is paid. If the purchase falls through then that money is gone.

Because after the exchange the buyer is legally obligated to buy the property, the bank requires that from this day a building insurance is taken out (would not apply to flats).

So between exchange and completion you're in a strange situation where you have an insurance on a property you don't yet have access to. "Completion" is when keys are handed off.

10 Years in London

It's interesting how things change when you're not looking. Last time I was in Sweden was in 2018, and it was easy to see the obvious changes, like buildings, and road changes. The big road to Kista was way different, as was Norrtull. And Odenplan is way more connected with its new commuter trains.

But there are less visible changes too, that make it seem less like home and more foreign. A new way to pay for public transport, with weird nonintuitive terms that I'm not used to. Imagine being asked "do you have a travel purse? (reskassa)". Huh? "The standard is 6, do you want that?" Standard what? 6 what? Because I didn't understand the guy actually thought I didn't speak Swedish (even though I'd spoken in complete sentences already).

So I feel like a bit of a foreigner.

It doesn't help that my personal ID number is no longer in the public register (it's still valid, just not in the public version of the register, SPAR), so companies call it "invalid". And my bank (SEB) said they will no longer be able to let me buy investments within their platform. I don't have to sell what I have, but I can't trade or buy anymore.

Some online stores don't accept that my Swish phone number is a UK one (but it does work, I've sent and received money with it), and paying with Bank ID doesn't work if my personal ID number is "invalid".

Several companies where I'm an existing customer don't support me changing my mailing/billing address in their system, so I have to contact support for them to manually change it. At least Binero, SEB, and Loopia. Also Skatteverket requires a letter to be sent. That's right, not everything is digital in Sweden. I think Avanza even needed a "proof of address" such as bank statement. I'd never heard of that in Sweden before.

Avanza will let me continue even after the UK leaves the EU fully (but would not let me create a new account if I didn't already have it), so that's good, at least.

A different kind of nanny state

I've noticed a pattern in how Sweden and UK handle differences in income differently.

Sweden has income tax, and that's pretty much it. There's four levels:

• Anything less than X is tax free
• Above that, anything less than Y is taxed at (about) 30%
• Above that, anything less than Z is taxed at (about) 50%
• Above that it's all taxed at (about) 55%

(details not important for these purposes)

Simple, right? I've made a spreadsheet that manages to compare UK to Sweden taxes, and after the complication of National Insurance (NI) tax being separated from income tax, and regressive, it's pretty simple.

The UK has very similar structure (though with lower percentages), but doesn't stop there. Unlike Sweden there are other limits where the UK takes away tax breaks and benefits as income increases. This becomes de facto progressive taxes (don't read me wrong, I'm not against progressive taxes), but added in a way that makes it very hard to get a real number for "how much more will I get in pocket if my income increases by X?" or "What is my net tax percentage at income X?".

Examples:

• At an undefined low income you can queue for council housing (I don't know much about this)
• At an undefined low income you can get a discount on your council tax (Sweden doesn't have council tax at all)
• If you earn more than £45k then any capital gains is taxed at 20% instead of 10% (with complicated formula to not make in-pocket go backwards)
• If either parent of a child earns more than £50k the child benefits start going away, to be completely gone at £60k. This is taken back as income tax.
• Between £100k and £120k the tax-free allowance disappears
• That's £11k * 40% = £4'400
• Between £150k and £210k the annual pension allowance decreases from £40k to £10k
• This is a tax increase of £30k * 47% = £14'100

Sweden has a bunch of ceilings, but things aren't taken away at higher incomes.

So which is better? I don't know. UK has the drawback that it's harder to get a clear answer (and you only find out about new rules when your salary increases to that limit), so tax system transparency is worse, and doing your taxes is harder.

Sweden has the drawback that e.g. there's no reason to give child benefits to someone earning a million SEK per year.

Bottom line though is that it's way harder than I expected to compare cost of living, or even tax rates, between countries. Maybe I was being naive.

Five years in London

As of today I've lived in London for five years. It seems like a good time for some kind of retrospective.

I've gone back to Sweden about once a year. I appreciate the architecture of Stockholm much more now. I feel like a foreigner (I guess it helps that in Sweden I stay in someone's spare bedroom and don't have my own place). I say silly things in Swedish (I've been Dolphed).

I appreciate speaking two languages fluently, in that some expressions that come naturally in one language are much harder to express in others. And language does steer thoughts, to some degree.

Take "övervakning" (surveillance) as an example. In English it sounds like "survey", but in Swedish it's closer to "over watching" (well, not really, but the word "over" is part of it). As in "watching from above". A co-worker found a sign in German that said "videoüberwachung" funny, because to him it sounded like it meant "videos are being super-watched", which did not occur to me as a Swedish and partial German-speaker.

Taxes. OMG Taxes. I had to do a self-assessment this year, which means I couldn't just squint at what HMRC sent me and go "uh... yeah that sounds about right" and do nothing. I had to actually run the numbers myself this year. So I got an accountant. The accountant was expensive. The back was taxes three times as expensive. But at least I've moved my tax liability for my savings and investments in Sweden to instead be in the UK. I am not a tax adviser, and I barely understand the annotated filled-in tax form my accountant gave me, but this appears to be beneficial to me.

What's still different about London:

• No mobile coverage on the tube. This is still crazy.
• Bank websites are still shockingly stuck in the past.
• I don't feel like I've fully internalized the value of the British pound. It doesn't help that all the prices are different here (food is cheaper, rent much more expensive) and that I'm making much more money here than I did in Sweden.
• Weekly scam phone calls: PPI protection and "We've been told you had an accident in the last few months, is that right?"
• Ok, so PPI protection is not a scam, but they won't stop calling even if you tell them "I was not in the country when this settlement happened. This does not apply to me. Please take me off your list."
• If you get the "accident" one, just ask "what address or name do you have on file for this accident?". They will hang up on you if you ask that.

What's different about Sweden:

• Why does a country of only ~10M people have their own language?
• I miss snow. Don't let the locals fool you, they don't really have winter and don't actually get any snow.
• "What do they know of England, who only England know" applies to Sweden too.
• Jantelagen is stupid.

My plans now:

• Get Permanent Residence Card. You can get this after 5 years and holding it for a year is a prerequisite for applying for citizenship. (if you are non-EU citizen you instead apply for Indefinite Leave to Stay (ILS).
• Continuing to live and work here.

The most untranslatable Swedish word

No, it's not "lagom".

It's "tjuvträna".

It's harder to explain in the UK than Cheeky Nandos is to explain to an American.

USD bank account

I have some stock priced in USD that incur a fixed currency conversion fee per transaction, and a currency conversion fee. If a stock is priced at $500 with a $25 fixed fee plus 1.6% conversion fee it's not really a good idea to sell one stock at a time, and even then there's the conversion fee.

So I called HSBC UK and asked them if I could open a USD account. Turns out they've discontinued that service in the UK, but that perhaps I could open a USD account with them in the US. Fine, doesn't matter for me where the account is, I guess.

Nope, can't do that, the next person said. I don't work in the US, so that's out.

Next they offered to open a USD offshore account with HSBC expat. We could walk through the application, and that will take about 40 minutes where they'll ask me about my income, my monthly expenses, etc.. I'll also have to come in to a branch office and show passport, UK driving license, and recent bank statement.

That makes some amount of sense... if I weren't already an HSBC customer, and they didn't already have all this on file for me already, and if I hadn't come in just last week to have them scan my driving license in addition to them already having my passport on file. But I am, and they do, and I did, and they do.

Ah, but HSBC is not the same as HSBC Expat.

Can't you copy-paste that info with my consent? -- No

Ugh. Can I do this online? Yes, I can print the form, fill it in, and come in with it and all my documents.

So the bank statement, I will get a bank statement from HSBC and then immediately hand it back to HSBC? -- Yes

Fine. HSBC is stupid, but fine.

Filling in the form I have to check a box saying I'm aware of IRS FATCA and that it either doesn't apply to me or that I've done the right things and have the right paperwork if it does. Uh... this could make my tax return much more complicated.

So I call my Swedish bank, SEB. Yeah, sure, it'll cost 300 SEK. They'll send me a thing I need to sign and then I'm all set.

Sounds painless. To be continued...

My new favourite UK hobby

My new favourite UK hobby is filling out forms in proper ISO 8601 format, and watching them struggle to understand it. (honestly people, 2014-12-24, it's not that hard!)

I feel a bit like Václav Havel when I do this.

References:

• ISO 8601 on Wikipedia
• xkcd.com/1179/

(there, a blog post done in 2014)

The broadband market in the UK is retarded

Coming from Sweden I may be biased. But how about getting the information to the customer right?

Virgin Media

They will tell you if they can give you internet, but if they say they can't provide TV you have to explicitly ask them if it's ADSL they're offering. They won't tell you, and it's not in the product information.

I ask them if ADSL is the only internet this house can get, even from other providers. They say yes.

Sky

You're expected to know that TV services require a dish. And as for "Sky Fibre Unlimited", oh dear lord. It doesn't require a dish, but they sent us information that our fibre box must be connected to a phone line that can make outgoing and incoming calls. WTF? I called them and they tell me it's optional (I'm not interested in having a land line). Fine.

The send a letter saying they've scheduled the install for 28th of Jan. Then we get another letter saying they've rescheduled the install to the day we preferred, the 13th of Jan. Turns out that was just the TV installer, not Internet.

When the TV installer comes over he says that he's sure "Sky Fibre Internet" is ADSL, and it's called "Fibre" because it uses BTs fibre backbone. When I object that Google uses fibre, that doesn't mean you can call something fibre just because it can access Google he just shrugs. Also ADSL doesn't do the 38 or 76Mbps that they sell.

So I call Sky. No, they assure me, it's a fibre cable coming in to the house. I ask "so in my house there will be a box that takes fibre in one end, and normal network cable in the other?". They say yes.

So Virgin can only offer ADSL for our place, and Sky can't provide TV. And both are retarded liars.

BT

Girlfriend calls BT to see if they can offer Internet & TV (without dish). They can. They offer the same fibre, that can give us speeds similar to what Sky offers. They say it's the same technology as Sky would offer, since it's actually BT that'll own the thing either way. Great. So it's fibre with 60-odd Mbps down? Yes, depending on the distance to the house. Wait.... wait what? No, fibre doesn't work that way. I ask "is it actually a fibre cable coming in to the house?". Yes, and it connects to the fibre modem. "This fibre modem has fibre coming in one side, and normal network cable in the other?". Uhm, no, she says. It's copper to the box down the street.

GAAAAAH!

So it seems we're getting FTTC, with some unknown copper handoff technology. (63.5/20 is not exactly what you'd call an even number).


PS:
At the previous place we had Virgin Media cable. It was actually quite good in terms of speed and services. It did have some packet loss problems though.

Dual citizenship

I have dual citizenship since birth. German and Swedish.

Neither of these countries force you to give up your citizenship when getting a new one (at least not one in the EU).

The UK will allow me to become a citizen without denouncing my other citizenships.

Muhahahahahaa.....

Your personal number is invalid

It seems that when you leave the country you also leave some databases. I'm not sure if it's SPAR or something, but I'm not in birthday.se, and I've been told by at least one service (upplysning.se if I remember correctly) that my personal number is invalid.

I'm currently failing to register an account with binero.se. The form doesn't tell me straight out, but I suspect that it's rejecting my personal number.

Binero helpfully allows me to select United Kingdom from the dropdown of countries, but insists that I enter exactly 5 digits and nothing else (well, a space is optional) in the "zip code" field. *Le sigh*

Exchanging your drivers license

Fairly pain free.

I went to DVLA in Wimbledon.

Their website said that they open at 9:00. Lies. On the second Wednesday of every month they open 9:30. Other than that it went smoothly.

Fill out form D1 (a general form for all sorts of "give me a license to drive a regular car, please"), hand it and the Swedish license to the man behind the counter and wait for them to verify your passport as ID. Alternatively you can have them send the passport back in the post when they're done with it, but as that was my last form of ID I opted to wait.

All in all I'd say it took about 20 minutes, including filling in the form and queuing.

Things to bring:

• Old license (they will take this)
• Passport (you'll get it back or they'll mail it back)
• Proof of address (they didn't ask me for this, but would be stupid to not bring)
• A photo suitable for the drivers license.
• D1 form (they have forms there, so you don't really need to bring it)
• A pen. All the pens next to the forms were just gone.

 DVLA has an interactive guide that's actually helpful.

Sweden is expensive

I'm back in Stockholm for xmas. I didn't notice as much that things in London are cheaper until I come back here and just gasp every time I see the price of something.

Indian food: 125 SEK per dish! In London you can get food for 2 people plus a large soda delivered to your door within an hour for that kind of money. And it'll be of the same quality.

Mass transit is still more expensive in London, but it's a lot bigger and Stockholm is trying to catch up it seems.

But at least in Stockholm the phone works on the tube.

Hope you're feeling better

When you tell someone that you're home sick the default reply here seems to be "Hope you're feeling better".

Is it just me or is that weird? Better than what? I just told you two seconds ago and you say you hope I'm feeling better. Better than two seconds ago? No, it's pretty much the same.

It makes sense to me if there's been some time since they learned that I'm not feeling well, since it's actually possible for me to feel better now than then.

First contact with the UK health system: 15min waiting for doctor in the emergency care thing (I'm not yet registered with a GP so I had to go there). The doctor examined me and gave me antibiotics (no trip to pharmacy required).

Didn't have to pay anything, and they didn't even ask for my NI number or proof of address, or ID.

To register with a GP I'd need to have two forms of ID, of which one would be a proof of address. I didn't do that since I didn't have any proof of address on me.

So in short: Why don't people say "hope you feel better soon"? Is it just that it's an automatic (but often incorrect, such as in my case) thing you say to someone who's sick, or is it idiomatic?

2-factor madness

Sweden: Every single bank has 2-factor auth. Paypal does not offer 2-factor for Swedes.

UK: Not a single bank has 2-factor auth. Paypal offers three kinds of 2-factor for people in the UK.

(HSBC as the first UK bank (according to themselves) is rolling out 2-factor in about a month. 1995 called. They were watching Jurassic Park but paused it to congratulate you on copying their basic security measures)

Can I change my PayPal address to another country?

No. Due to banking regulations, you can not change your address to a country that is different from the country you used when you opened your account. If you're moving abroad, you’ll need to close your existing account and open a new account. If you maintain residences in 2 countries, you can have 2 PayPal accounts as long as only one is a Premier or Business account.

-- Paypal

(my emphasis)

Crazy candy

I've seen toffee-covered popcorn but strawberry and white chocolate popcorn? Crazy. Oh, and they are also covered in toffee.

DNS wildcard

Virgins broadband has a DNS that hijacks things in DNS using a wildcard or something.

ಠ_ಠ

But at least it was easy to turn off.

Chocolate and mail

When the package says "Drinking chocolate, mix in with warm milk" they really mean it. It won't dissolve in cold milk.

And mail arrives on Saturday mornings. Imagine that...

Electricity plugs

I really like the electric outlets and plugs here. No more frustration being unable to plug something in, screaming and stomping on the damn thing. And every outlet has a power switch.

And no more "don't pull out the cable by yanking the cord' warnings, because you can't.

Nice.

Post codes

I think I understand post codes now.

Don't think of an address as a street and street number. Think of an address as a post code.

The post code narrows your location down to just a few doors on a street. Think 5 doors (it'll probably be closer to 5 than 20). So which door is it exactly? Just provide a house name or a house number.

So a complete address can be something like "SW1V 3LX, 27", which would mean "Foostreet 27, SW1V 3LX, London". The 27 is just there to make it unique.