Keeping on top of the jobs that get expensive when they are left and knowing which ones are a legal duty.
Almost every expensive repair in a home starts out as a cheap one that nobody got round to. This is the plain version: what needs doing around a UK home, how often, season by season and the handful of checks that are a legal duty rather than good practice.
Planning permission and building regulations are two separate systems asking two different questions. A job can need one, both or neither. This is how to tell them apart, which one produces a certificate and why a buyer will ask you for it years later.
Nearly every wet patch in a British home gets called damp and most of them are not. This is how to tell condensation from penetrating damp and rising damp, why the difference decides what you should spend and why the person you ask first matters as much as the wall.
A washing machine that dies in year four is a different problem from one that dies in year twelve. This is how long the things in a typical UK home actually last, what usually goes first, how to decide whether a repair is worth paying for and why your legal rights outlast the warranty by years.
