Q. Ours is an unusual situation to say the least. My partner and I live a rural existence and have done for the past twenty years. As country dwellers, we are quite used to (and do not mind) living next door to open farmland. However, the farm changed hands last year and the new owner also changed the field use from arable crop to organic livestock – he has actually diversified and is now keeping goats for milk and cheese production.

Although we applaud his organic mission, the goats are causing damage to our land by eating our vegetation, which they can reach over the inappropriate field gate fencing. A polite word has only had our farming neighbour laughing but we feel very strongly, having spent a great deal on money on creating a beautiful landscaped garden. I believe that the onus should not be on us to put up new fencing and which would obviously spoil our uninterrupted view. Is there any action we could take which might have a more positive effect?

A. Legally, the law is on your side as The Animals Act 1971 makes provision for the victim of damage caused by animals kept on neighbouring land to be compensated by the land owner. I would suggest that if a polite word has failed, you write to the farmer more formally reminding him of his legal obligation and, whilst wishing to retain good relationships with him, emphasising your equal determination to prosecute to recover any loss or damage caused by his livestock. I would further suggest that you put to him that he either erects more appropriate fencing next to your two properties, installs electrified fencing as per standard agricultural fencing procedures, or that he keeps you supplied in perpetuity with delicious milk and goat’s cheese gratis!

Q. It may sound crazy but I have just undertaken my first project in property development and wonder what I might be able claim back in relation to tax? I have kept all receipts to date but would like to know what I can legitimately claim.

A number of works have been carried out, mostly by contractors: a central heating system, new windows, a new kitchen with integrated appliances and a new bathroom suite. The property has also been fully rewired and re-plastered. There are also new carpets throughout and the garden has been re-landscaped with new pathways, gravel etc.

A. You would be best served by seeking specialist tax advice from a certified chartered accountant. Broadly speaking, the expenses that you can deduct from any profit will include legal fees, estate agents’ costs, stamp duty and any expenses directly relating to the development. There will also be some other ancillary expenses that you could include such as telephone calls, use of your car to visit the site etc.

If you are developing with a view to letting the property, most or all of the expenses you listed will be of a capital nature. Although you wouldn’t be able to offset these against rental income, they can be added to the cost of the property and should be deductible for capital gains tax purposes if and when you eventually dispose of it. Finally, if this is going to be a full-time business, you are also obliged to notify the Revenue of your self employed status (within three months of starting) and prepare accounts for each tax year to show your income and expenditure for the year. These accounts would then form part of your self-assessment tax return. See the HM Revenue & Customs website.

Q. I am 20 years into a 25 year repayment mortgage to which I have also been contributing to an endowment policy attached to the mortgage. Due to recent fortunate financial circumstances, I have just paid off the mortgage in full. However, I still wish to contribute towards the endowment as a savings vehicle and cash it in at the end of the term. Please can you advise whether there are any tax implications for me, as the policy is no longer attached to a property purchase.

A. The good news is that when your endowment has matured, even if you have previously paid your mortgage in full, then the proceeds from the endowment policy plus any accrued bonus is yours, completely, and there will be no liability to pay tax on this income. Enjoy!

Q. My wife and I are wanting to downsize and adopt a much greener lifestyle. We are both interested in exploring new eco homes such as those constructed from straw bales which are reputed to have excellent thermal qualities and be really cheap to build. Can you advise please.

A. Enthusiastically espoused by people on programmes such as ‘It’s not easy being green,’ and ‘Grand Designs’, straw bale homes are becoming an increasingly popular home choice for the seriously eco-conscious among us. As you rightly say, homes constructed of straw bales provide excellent thermal qualities and they are also surprising solid.

The key benefit apart from their green credentials is the price – a remarkably inexpensive £5,000 for a 40m² building. However, there is also the cost of the land to add to that as well as any planning and building regulations issues to address. Amazonails is an excellent website for people interested in straw bale homes.

Q. We recently sold our house via a local, privately owned estate agent. However, the commercial relationship did not get off to a good start and after the sale was eventually agreed, the agent failed to return numerous calls, reply to letters and seemed evasive when we asked him for progress reports. On completion, the agent promptly tendered his bill, £4,000 which we are loathed to pay simply because we do not feel that the agent ‘earned’ his money. Can we object?

A. You can of course object directly to the agent but I do not feel you have any legal grounds to withhold a sum for the perceived poor service. The facts are, albeit that the agent was a poor communicator, that they introduced a buyer who successfully completed a purchase. That is key remit of any estate agent – and whilst I do not condone for one moment the shoddy service and agree with you that the agent could have acted more professionally throughout the transaction, I also believe that the fee is due for securing a successful sale alone. As the agent is privately owned, your options for pursuing a complaint are more limited than a chain-owned agency. If you really must complain, I suggest writing a firm letter outlining the key failures of service as you see them and asking the agent to deduct what he considers a fair sum for this aspect – but I suspect it will be a futile request.

If you’re looking for an estate agent to market your home, take a look at our agent listings on Primelocation.com.

Q. I went under offer to a first time buyer in January and the sale went smoothly until last week when, two days before the date of exchange of contracts, my buyer insisted that I reduced my selling price by £10,000 or he would pull out. What can I do? I’ve already spent money on mortgage surveys and a HIP.

A. Welcome to the ugly world of Gazundering, the buyer’s market equivalent of Gazumping. Gazundering is the unethical act of leading a seller on in a depressed market until the point of exchange before hitting them with the hammer blow of having to make a significant price reduction or they will pull out. Although this odious practice is sadly not illegal, a recent study surprisingly revealed that 94% of the population would actually do it themselves in order to get a better price! Until gazundering is outlawed, I would offer the following advice:

• Act normally. A hostile response will further alienate your buyer. Encourage a face to face meeting where you can quiz them directly about their motives and perhaps persuade them to change their mind.

• If structural issues are cited as the reason for wanting a price reduction as is usually the case (when it is really commercial speculation), insist on expert evidence to substantiate such claims. If there are genuine issues, engage your own quotes to do the necessary work which may be significantly cheaper than your buyer’s inflated quotes.

• If it is possible, try to spread the financial load up the chain. It may be possible to get a like for like reduction from the vendors of the property you are buying which will negate your immediate financial issue and hopefully allow the transaction to proceed to completion.

Got a property quandary? Let us know and we’ll try to help out.

Q. We moved into our first property, a ground floor London flat, in October last year. Until recently, we never heard anything from upstairs but our neighbours above recently installed laminate flooring. The noise transmission is a real problem. Before we make a hash of it, could you advise how to broach this sensitive subject with our neighbours who are a lovely couple only living a normal life, albeit on flooring which echoes like a cave!

A. The issue must be handled delicately as you do not want to inflame the situation nor get into a dispute with your neighbour, something which would have to be declared to any prospective buyer in the future. I would ask one of the couple down for a coffee when both are in, where it might be easier to demonstrate to them the sound transmission from their flat to yours. If you say that you can hear every detail of their conversation, this could embarrass them into keeping quieter. If the problem does not resolve itself and a rug doesn’t do any good, you could offer to have a builder (at your cost) uplift and relay their flooring over special sound insulation boards such as produced and sold by specialist acoustics firm DomesticSoundproofing.co.uk, but I fear this would be disproportionately expensive. Sadly, your situation is typical of the issues caused by the modern vogue of installing cheap, thin wooden or laminate flooring. If problems persist, your neighbours refuse and you really cannot live with the noise, you may need to, reluctantly, up the stakes by contacting your local EHO (Environmental Health Officer) and keeping a noise diary. The EHO will be able to advise if the level of noise constitutes a statutory nuisance.

Got a burning property question? Leave it in a comment or email us and Barry will give you an answer.

Q. Our home is situated in a small rural hamlet. Between our house and the one next door is a strip of land owned by a person who lives three doors down and who uses it to keep a couple of ponies. We would like to acquire the land as the owner is a very elderly man and we are fearful what might happen should he pass away and leave it to people who do not care about the two houses either side of the land. We currently have a small mortgage on our home so finance shouldn’t be a problem. Would we need to apply for a remortgage or will we have to apply for a separate mortgage on the land?

A. Yes, you could remortgage subject to your having sufficient equity in your home and a good credit rating. Alternatively, if you have had your mortgage for a while and are not tied in to any existing offer or deal, you could ask an independent broker such as John Charcol to take a fresh look at the whole market to find another more competitive deal. It could well be the case that if the land is not prohibitively expensive, a new, increased mortgage particularly with today’s excellent deals, actually costs less than you are currently paying. In the first instance though, you will need to try and strike up a dialogue with the land owner. Given the circumstances you present, this could be a tall order!

Q. I live in a sympathetically restored 1858 cottage and am currently thinking about replacing the flooring in the sitting room with genuine reclaimed oak floorboards. My dilemma is that I have beautiful original high skirting boards which are in fine order. Should I lay the floor and adjust that to size or would it be better to take up the skirting and lay the oak boards underneath?

A. If you have sufficient skills and the right toolkit, by all means take up the skirting as fitting your flooring underneath will always provide the more professional finish. However, please be mindful that your internal walls behind the skirting are probably made up of old lath and plaster. This will be extremely crumbly and should you take off the skirting, you could be storing up all manner of problems when it is eased away from the wall, leaving you with an expensive and time-consuming re-plastering job which could lead you to have to re-size the presently perfectly fitting skirting boards. If you decide not to remove the skirting, you must allow a 10mm expansion gap around the perimeter and use a suitable beading or moulding to cover this gap. It is not an authentic finish by any means but less complicated than skirting removal.

Q. Given that so much has been written in recent months about the demise of the 2008/9 property market, what was it that caused the last house price crash? I would be interested to know this in order to do an historical comparison.

A. After the major recession of the late 1970s ended, right up to 1988 in fact, UK property prices saw a similar growth spurt as we have seen in the past decade. There were two key reasons for the crash in the late eighties. Firstly, the era coincided with an increasing demand from a more affluent post-war generation encouraged into home ownership by the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Secondly, there was great liquidity in the economy with an easy availability of credit.

However, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, announced in March 1988 that he was ending “double mortgage tax relief,” a process whereby both parties of an unmarried couple could claim tax relief (MIRAS) on mortgage interest, people flocked to snap up property and real estate inflation went through the roof as sellers cashed in on the boom.

As soon as the cut-off date was reached a few months later, interest in property buying subsided almost overnight with viewings and sales plummeting. Estate agents struggled to sell even competitively priced property and the absence of interest in the market led to the crash. The killer blow came between May 1988 and October 1989 when interest rates rocketed from just under 7.5% to nearly 15%. It was this increase coupled with lack of affordability because of the cessation of double tax relief that spelled the death knell for property, a market reversal which was to last for several years. Like all markets, however, recovery eventually comes.

Q. I have just bought a four-bedroom detached property which needs partial renovation on the ground floor. One of the key requirements is a top-range kitchen. We have had several firms come out to offer ideas and we’ve short-listed them down to three whose product ranges and ideas all fit in with our vision. What steps can we take to ensure that we employ the best company? Our budget is £25,000.

A. £25,000 is a considerable sum of money to invest in one room and so you are right to want to focus your efforts on recruiting a quality team. Naturally, with any installation, you should always go on previous recommendation and so I would suggest that you firstly request from the kitchen company, details of the proposed team to be used on your project and then seek written references with photographs of similar quality completed work by that team which you are able to follow up. By asking previously satisfied clients questions about the timekeeping, tidiness and workmanship, you will be able to gauge if this is the team and indeed the kitchen company for you. Secondly, the Kitchen Bathroom Bedroom Specialists Association (KBSA) is a body with a 400-strong membership of accredited retailers dedicated to upholding the Association’s high standards of design, supply and installation. All KBSA members offer either a ConsumerCare or ConsumerCare Plus scheme which protects clients’ deposits and/or work in progress, plus any advance payments.

(Looking for kitchen renovation ideas? Check out our 16 great kitchen worktops article.)

Q. We are first-time buyers looking to get onto the property ladder and need advice on surveys. We’re not sure what type of property we would like to buy; it could be an old Victorian converted flat as much as a new property. Please can you explain the various types of surveys, what they mean and which one you suggest.

A. There are three basic types of survey and which one you choose will depend on how thoroughly you want the property inspected. Each one is more in-depth than the other and obviously more expensive:

•  Valuation survey – Carried out by the building society, bank or lender, a valuation survey is the most basic option and is really only for the benefit of the lender, not the purchaser. This type of survey, although mandatory if you require a mortgage, will not offer any advice about the structural integrity of the building.

•  Homebuyer’s Report – This is a level two property survey with a format prescribed by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and can only be carried out by a Chartered Surveyor. This type of survey offers more detailed information on any movement issues, timber defects and dampness – an internal and external examination of the building and an overview of the services with recommendations for further testing if required.

•  Building Survey – Previously known as a Full Structural Survey, this is also carried out by a RICS surveyor and is the most comprehensive survey available for residential property purchases. A Building Survey is much more detailed than a Homebuyer’s Report, pointing out all minor defects and providing guidance on the cost of correcting them. If the property is particularly old, unusual in design or if you are planning major restoration works, a full building survey is strongly recommended for complete peace of mind.

Got a property quandary? Need an answer ASAP? Leave a comment with your question and we’ll do our best to help.