Our city is the City of Westminster, and you can improve cycling in Pimlico by joining the Times Cities fit for cycling campaign and push the 5 points which are relevant to Pimlico:

• Trucks in London should be required by law to fit sensors, audible truck-turning alarms, extra mirrors and safety bars to stop cyclists being thrown under the wheels.
• Road junctions must be fitted with priority traffic lights for cyclists and Trixi mirrors that allow lorry drivers to see cyclists on their near-side.
• Two per cent of the Highways Agency budget should be earmarked for next generation cycle routes, providing £100 million a year towards world-class cycling infrastructure. Each year cities should be graded on the quality of cycling provision.
• The training of cyclists and drivers must improve and cycle safety should become a core part of the driving test.
• 20mph should become the default speed limit in residential areas where there are no cycle lanes.

You can tweet your support for the Times Campaign Tweet #cyclesafe and also write to our MP in support of the Times

The Police have a plan to help us prevent and deter cycle theft and criminal damage – they offer free security marking and advice. Security marking your bike deters potential thieves as your bike can be easily traced if it is stolen.

Today and every other 1st Thursday of every month, from 7.45 – 10am at Duke of York Steps, The Mall SW1.

On alternate months the time will change to 4 – 7pm.

February 2nd 7.45 – 10am at Duke of York Steps, The Mall SW1.

March 1st 4 – 7pm at Duke of York Steps, The Mall SW1

April 5th 7.45 – 10am at Duke of York Steps, The Mall SW1.

etc etc

Buy a decent lock – preferably two
Expect to pay at least £40 for a decent lock
Locking your cycle securely:

• Lock ‘tight’ so that your cycle is hard to move around when parked
• Lock both wheels and the frame to a cycle stand or other immoveable object
• Secure your lock so it does not touch the ground

Visit the London Cycling Campaign website for types of lock and Sold Secure for certified locks.

Get insurance

An easy way to do this is to extend your home contents insurance to cover your bicycle – but make sure it covers you for thefts outside the home too. If your bicycle is particularly valuable you may need to insure it separately. See Bike For All for recommended insurers.

Security mark it

A number of bike marking schemes are available. Always ensure you use an ACPO-approved marking scheme, such as BikeRegister kits – the MPS preferred bike marking product.

As part of their move to improve cycle security, the Cycle Task Force regularly set up engagement stalls offering free security marking and registration onto www.BikeRegister.com. For more information about Cycle Task Force security marking emailcycletaskforce@met.police.uk

If you are marking your bike, please ensure the security mark:

• Is clearly visible, highlighting that the bike is security coded
• Is secure and difficult for a thief to remove
• Include a registration log book, proving ownership

Follow the Three R’s:

Record

Keep a record of the frame number, make and any other marks that can identify your bike if it stolen. If you can’t find your bike frame number, have a look:

• Near the handlebars
• Below the seat post
• By or underneath the pedals
• Towards the back wheel

Register

Register your bike details onto online property databases such as BikeRegister.com. This will help the police return any recovered bikes to the rightful owners

Report

If your bike is stolen in London, please report this to the Metropolitan Police Service by calling 101 or online atwww.online.met.police.uk. In an emergency dial 999.

If you are a victim of bike theft and you suspect your bike is being sold, do not arrange to meet the seller, contact the police, quoting your crime reference number.

Extra points to remember

• Park your bike where it can be seen – people will also see if someone is trying to steal it. Use designated parking areas.
• Make sure the locks catch the bike frame as well as both wheels and the post, or a thief may steal the bike and leave the wheels behind. Also, make sure the post can’t be cut through, or the bike lifted off it
• Don’t leave your bike in the same place every day
• Make it impossible for a thief to smash the lock open: fill the D part of a lock with as much of the bike as possible. Never leave the lock lying on the pavement, where it can be sledge hammered easily
• Take any items that can be removed without tools – wheels, lights, pump, computer, panniers, seat post and saddle – with you

Richard Greenland

The refurb of the flat is continuing with the eradication of the dry rot, the completion of the first-fix (before the plastering) electrics, and the building of false ceilings beneath the existing, to provide sound-proofing.

I use an unorthodox method to deal with dry rot, and link to my blog. The conventional method is to chop out the affected wood at lease a metre beyond visible infection, then saturate everything in chemicals. I used to do it this way, but there are problems in that the chemicals are very toxic and can be harmful to people. Also they don’t soak all the way into the wood, and dry-rot can be extremely persistent and make its way along the untreated core of the wood, avoiding the chemicals on the outside.

rotten window sill and dry rot hyphae beneath

My method relies on the simple fact that all living organisms need water to survive. Dry Rot is a misnomer in that it needs to have its feet in water somewhere and requires conditions of quite high humidity to survive. But it is able to transport water from one place (such as a basement) over very long distances (such as to a roof). All I do is look for the source of the moisture and eliminate it. In this case it was a leak under the bath, and a soggy window sill below the rotten windows. The infection is now dead.

I’m not suggesting others try it, and I’m not sure if you can get guarantees with this kind of work. Until such guarantees can be obtained most people will unfortunately have to rely on the conventional chemical method.

Here is an earlier blog I wrote about Dry Rot 

I try to keep this blog tightly on the subjects of Pimlico, Renting, and Flats. It’s not too difficult because I can use the Forum to ramble about other subjects, and this keeps the blog focussed.

I thought that I would stray a little to talk about this blog, and blogging, as a way of thanking my many sources of information, and I have broken the story into three parts.

Pimlico

Renting

Property

Pimlico

Blogging about Pimlico is probably the easiest of my 3 core subjects, particularly since I define “Pimlico” as being anywhere within walking distance of Pimlico Flats – so that covers Central London, and makes:

• Victoria & Belgravia “North Pimlico”,
• Kensington and Chelsea “West Pimlico”,
• Battersea, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Clapham “South Pimlico”
• Westminster, Soho “East Pimlico”

I try to focus on free and little published events and attractions, as the bigger professional things are generally commercially advertised and known about. My biggest source of information is the weekly publication The Pimlico News and Journal which is something that I publish myself and is automatically curated from various feeds. It has been sufficiently successful that I now carry it as a page on this website which can be accessed from the menu on the left.

It’s a great Newspaper but I must give thanks to some of the contributors. There are of course the usual traditional sources of information, BBC, Newspapers, but the purpose of niche blogging is to uncover the real story, and here are the local blogs and websites which I follow in order to reach the news other blogs can’t reach:

London Blogs

• Foremost has to be the Westminster Chronicle  just because we need professional journalists and local newspapers in our lives, and if you don’t use them and pay for them we will lose them, and be all the poorer. I don’t know how the power of the internet will pan out, but printed news is under pressure from free blogs like this, and the free “Pimlico News and Journal” that I just promoted. In spite of my competition with the Chronicle all I can say is that we need our local shops, and newspapers, so please buy a copy from your local newsagent.
• Londonist  a website about London and everything that happens in it – it’s a professional publication set up in 2004 as The Big Smoker. I like it because, although it is a comprehensive London-wide reference resource, it carries this off with humour and is in touch with it’s community roots (e.g. the Hand Drawn Maps initiative). They provide everything you need to know about the capital, as well as celebrating the quirks, eccentricities, hidden and surprising bits that make up the alternative side of the city.
• Discovering London - which I juxtapose alongside Londonist because Peter’s blog is small, if not tiny, yet it is brimming over with personality, quality, and originality. Peter has yet to reach his 1st anniversary of blogging, but already his website is one of my favourites.
• Tired of London, Tired of Life began in October 2008 as a place to document those moments of inspiration for making living in London exciting & different. Doing the same thing day after day can get anyone down, but our city has an almost infinite number of things to see and do. If you’re not getting the most out of London, it is a sad truth that you have no one to blame but yourself. This site was part of a personal plan for the author to get the most out of the greatest city on earth, and it has worked.
• Going Underground Look at what the mainstream press has to say! The magic, mystery & sometimes maddening shortcomings of London’s Tube are documented with love, enthusiasm & sometimes despair by its unofficial social historian ……. The best blogs have a tinge of obsession about them … On some mornings it can feel like the only reason to be grateful that the Tube exists … one of London’s obsessives
• Young and Poor  Cheap/free events, gigs, food & drink, or sales —  never paid to mention things so it’s only things worth recommending.
• Ian Visits does NOT list the mainstream music/theatre/film events which are already so well supplied by the major newspapers and magazines – but DOES list the heritage open days, walking tours and mostly, the astonishing array of free (or cheap) lectures that the societies and universities of London provide. It’s a personal resource of remarkable usefulness.
• Boris Watch An act of frustration, at the loss to apparent personality politics, and the accusation that somehow young people are to blame …… but also a great tap into the stories that THEY don’t want you to read about.
• Laura Porter London-based travel writer & VisitBritain Super Blogger, mum, copywriter, tea drinker, afternoon tea addict & all-round London obsessive. She is a professional travel writer for About but I have recommended her twitter feed as she is a model in how to use Social Media. She does so much more than just promote her own writing, and is very generous with the links and information that she publishes. Consequently I would say – if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of mainstream London – follow Laura.

Richard Greenland

Like any refurb, the first thing to do is rip out all the stuff you don’t want any more. In this case there were a lot of tiles to come out of the old kitchen and bathroom, which came off easily enough. But the adhesive was very thick in places and extremely stubborn! The kitchen furniture was only good for the tip, but I’m hoping to re-use the bath, basin, toilet and immersion heater tank, so I’ve disconnected them and they are now getting in my way in the lounge.

We decided the layout needed changing as it was pretty hopeless having the bathroom taking up valuable space in the bedroom and a windowless kitchen. The bedroom is to become the lounge with a kitchenette. The bathroom will go in the small windowless room. Surprisingly there will be room for a bath, loo and basin. When we bought the flat the bathroom partition was already partially dismantled, apparently due to the previous occupants botched attempt at dry rot removal. So that meant I had a bit less ripping out to do! Unfortunately there was also a hole in another wall, which I have now

Hole in wall to be repaired and false ceiling to be removed over old bathroom

repaired. The kitchen was in a small windowless room. We are still not sure whether we are going to let or sell, so it’s tricky making decisions about the exact spec. The spec for BTL has to be hard-wearing and inexpensive, so I normally prefer Howden’s kitchens for that. The spec for sale has (in this case) got to look classy and neutral without being too expensive. Ikea Adel Birch is light and perfect for this flat. We’ve decided to go the Ikea kitchens route as it keeps options open for letting or sale. I already have these in two rented flats and they have held up surprisingly well. This will always be a smallish and fairly low-end flat there is no point in using anything flashy or expensive, we just have to make it neutral and pleasant. I’ll try to incorporate a Unique Selling Point, but I’m not sure what that will be with less than 30 square metres to play with!

New supplies and wastes for bath, basin, toilet and shower.

The old kitchen before I started work.

Unfortunately there is no gas, so I’ll also re-use the existing electric emersion heater tank, and I have a nearly-new electric shower from another property I can also re-use. I’ll do most of the plumbing myself even though it’s not my trade, as without gas there are no certification issues. It’s been fairly straightforward as the supplies are already there as I’m simply swapping a bathroom for a kitchen, so I don’t have to run a new supply in as I would if converting a bedroom, say. Also I can re-use the old bath waste for the new kitchen sink, and most of the old copper pipes linking hot and cold supplies between the two rooms. I’m running most of my new pipes in plastic as it’s easier and quicker. However it took about a day and a half to drill the cores for the bathroom waste pipes through the solid walls, two feet of metamorphic limestone and very hard. After that, connecting up to the existing soil stack outside was a doddle.

I’ve got an electrician in for the wiring. I could attempt it myself then get it certified, but I’m not fully conversant with all the 17^th edition regs so I could waste a lot of time and materials if my work has to be re-done. Incidentally there is a lot of misunderstanding about what can and can’t legally be done by a Certified Electrician. It is not illegal if the work is done properly and by a competent person. If there are issues with the work or someone is electrocuted, if you can demonstrate competency you are in the clear. A certificate is not mandatory, but may be necessary if you wish to sell, and for your own peace of mind if you wish to rent.

Monday 23 January is considered the most depressing day of the year.

For one day and one day only an installation by art collective Greyworld that replicates the effects of the sun will be raised by crane 56m high above Trafalgar Square, the installation gives off more than four million lumens of light – the equivalent of 260,000 lightbulbs, to brightening up a cold, dark winter day.

The Trafalgar Sun has taken six months to create, will be 30,000 times bigger than a football and weigh over 2,500kgs (two and a half tons!). The sun will rise an hour early at 6.51am and set at 7.33pm, extending the daylight in Trafalgar Square by two hours.

The Trafalgar Sun, Trafalgar Square, London, from 5.57am until 7.33pm on Monday 23rd January

Richard Greenland

Last week I wrote about how we bought a one-bed flat about 30% BMV (below market value), when the cost of all works are factored in.

I’d been trying to contact the owner of the two top-floor flats, as to make it legally lettable we’d have to install linked fire alarms in all flats. I’d been told he wasn’t interested in cooperating in any way – not a good start. A couple of days into the refurb he pitched up on his bicycle. He refused to shake my hand, and the first thing he said to me was to tell me to move my van – it wasn’t getting any better!

I asked what he wanted to do about the alarm, and the conversation went like this:

“I don’t want to do anything about it.”

“But it doesn’t work!”

“So?”

“Well we have a legal responsibility to provide a working alarm.”

“I don’t care.”

“The maximum fine for non-compliance is £60,000.”

“So?”

“If you don’t co operate we’ll have no choice but to report you to the fire officer.”

“Ok I don’t care.”

Converted garage belonging to adjoining flat.

Unbelievable! Non-compliance also invalidates his insurance – assuming he even has any of course. We considered reporting him immediately but decided he might come to his senses and sure enough he did. As to why he was so sore at me, it became clear he’d wanted to buy it himself, but been caught out by our super-quick 4-day completion. He then assumed we were amateurs who’d over-paid, he was saying things like ‘These flats are only worth about £35K and they are cheap for a reason’ (but he later offered us £40K for it!) His face hit the floor when I told him what we’d actually paid!

I also found out from the OO (owner-occupier) in the other GFF (ground floor flat) that he’d been trying to bully her into selling cheap because of the title issues (absent freeholder and no management co). He’d been uncooperative about intercoms, communal décor and carpets, and even tried to claim that she had no right to park on her own drive. All this was making me feel more inclined to do the refurb and sell, rather than try to do BTL (buy-to-let) with this person in the building. Or we could buy him out cheaply, using the same issues he’d been trying to use against the OO, plus dry rot plus his non-compliance with the law in running illegal tenancies. I’ve offered him £40K each (same as his offer to me) for the six flats he owns in this and the adjoining block, subject to an inspection of course. A long-shot, but it would be delicious to profit from a rogue landlord!

I’ll write about how I’m changing the layout next week.

Edit – I met him again on Monday, since I wrote this blog, and he seems to have had a change of heart and was attempting to be more co operative. Also all his tenants speak well of him. And he’s offered to contribute £500 towards soundproofing our ceilings. Things may not be as straightforward as I’d assumed and we may be able to work with him after all.

Only in Pimlico does a knife wielding mugger ask police to look after his cat.

In a dawn raid detectives seized a 32-year-old man on suspicion of a violent robbery on a woman in Belgravia last month. In the attack the woman had a pair of £100,000 earrings pulled from her ears moments after she had stepped from her Bentley car in Eaton Place. Police suspect there are links to a series of eight attacks on women walking home alone in Pimlico in November and last month.

The robbers stole jewellery and watches, sometimes at knifepoint – leading residents to organise night-time patrols to guard the streets. Officers from Westminster Crime Squad burst into the suspect’s one-bedroom flat on the third floor of a council block in Notting Hill early today. Using a steel battering ram, they smashed their way inside, shouting “police, police, police”.

Sounds of a struggle could be heard before the suspect was led away in handcuffs – after first asking one officer to look after his pet cat, Angel.

Knife Wielding Mugger

Richard Greenland

We almost didn’t buy this one as it didn’t initially make my criteria of 30%+ below a conservative valuation, and minimum 12% yield. These criteria set a high bar, as I was 100% reliant on OPM (other people’s money), with all my own money tied up in existing investments. Therefore any deals had to be extremely good and virtually guarantee a big profit to any investors. Trouble was, they also meant I’d only bought one property for almost a year.

Things changed with a new investor and the idea that we’d make more money with more deals, even if each deal was less profitable individually. I was reluctant because more marginal deals are more risky with less ‘meat’ as a cushion if things go awry. Also, if we lost money on the first deal, we probably wouldn’t do business again. If we did nine profitable deals, then one went bad, we probably would. Hence I wanted the first deal to be very high profit and low risk. I don’t believe in the notion that high-profit = high risk and low profit = low risk. The way I do business it’s the other way round.

Outside decor a bit careworn

Anyway this was a one-bed ground-floor flat in Weston super Mare with a market value of £60 – £65K when complete, needing about £8K spending on layout changes and refurb. So conservatively £52K as it stood. It had been bought unseen as an auction repo for £56K by a trader who’d made a bad mistake. Buying blind is dangerous unless done in bulk and you can afford to play the numbers. I saw it posted on http://propertytribes.ning.com/forum by my friend Ant Lyons of YPN, who had already negotiated it down to £42K. It was unmortgageable having been owned less than 6 months, and in any case would be hard to mortgage with a purchase price of less than £50K. This meant Ant had changed his mind, so Ken, another friend, took it and negotiated it down to £41K. He asked me to look at it for him, and it became clear it had a number of other issues:

No management co as the director had absconded with funds.

Absent freeholder.

No linked alarm system (a legal requirement, it was in a block of 4 with one front door, and over three floors).

dry rot damage

Dry rot.

With all this to contend with, Ken decided he didn’t want it either and with his blessing I took over. I wasn’t overly concerned about the absent freeholder or lack of management co as we are cash purchasers so didn’t need a mortgage straight away. So I neg’d it down to £39K for the dry rot, based on the estimates of two independent specialist contractors.

Then we investigated titles and there was no parking at the front in spite of appearances. Further, the conversion to flats was granted planning in 1988. Flats in multiple blocks like this, non-compliant with 1991 building regs, are classified as a 257 HMO (house in multiple

Dry-rot damaged plaster and wood hidden under the floor by previous owner - very naughty!

occupation) as defined in section 257 of the Housing Act 2004.

http://www.lacors.gov.uk/lacors/ContentDetails.aspx?id=16977

and

http://www.tmbc.gov.uk/assets/housing/Landlords_Guide_to_the_Management_of_Section_257_HMOs.pdf

They need a linked alarm system in every flat, which is expensive to install, and impossible without the cooperation of all flat owners. So we further reduced our offer to £34k, agreed at £36,500, and completed within 4 days. The vendor had lost £20K by buying blind, and said on the phone he “hoped he would never hear of Locking Road, Weston S M ever again!”

I’ll write about my first encounter with the owner of the other flats next week.

Speaking as a Pimlico HMO I was somewhat amazed at the stupidity displayed by 4 of my Bristol Bretheren who seem to have just ignored their local authority, and their responsibilities to provide safe decent accommodation.

The knowledge and attitude of local authority Environmental Health Officers can be patchy – they can be helpful, skilled, trained, or sometimes they leave you shaking your head in disbelief. You have to take the rough with the smooth, and in general things will turn out all right. What you cannot do is ignore them, or believe that the regulations apply to everyone else, but not you.

Housing Officers from Bristol City Council, found a series of problems at an HMO including:

• Failure to provide adequate fire safety at the property.
• Failure to ensure the shared areas of the property were maintained in a good and clean decorative order.
• Failure to ensure the property was kept in good repair.
• Failure to provide lighting in many of the shared areas of the property.
• Keeping a property whose structure was a danger to the health of the occupiers.
• Failure to provide information about the property when required to do so.

Bristol  can offer a range of advice and support to help landlords comply with legislation, however, where landlords refuse to co-operate and where there are serious breaches of the Housing Act (as in this case) local authorities can and will take legal action to compel them to bring improvements.

On December 21, the landlords were summonsed before Bristol Magistrates Court in relation to alleged offences under the Housing Act 2004 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. They, failed to attend Court or have representation – talk about committing suicide! The defendants were found guilty on all charges, and the combined fines totalled £30,036.30 and combined costs totalled £5,199.60.

Private landlord prosecuted by council for Housing Act failures