Houseboats ! Are They Honestly A Genuine Alternative To Buying Bricks And Mortar As A Place To Live In?
The main thing we all notice about houses and property generally is that when We Buy Houses we have to part with rather a lot of money and we get saddled with a pile of debt! Houses are costly whichever way you look at it and within the UK as a whole there really isn’t that much for sale for less that about sixty five thousand quid . What are the alternatives then? Well assuming you want to remain in the UK there are an extremely limited number of options . I’ve always wanted to Sell My House and live out in the open air. Something tells me that this might not be the pleasant lifestyle that I have dreamt of though, especially in a hailstorm in February .
Also cave dwelling is not an option . In this country anyway. All caves in the UK tend to belong to someone and eventually you will get evicted , probably ages before you can make it comfortable and homely. By the way if cave life does appeal to you then you can always move to Granada in Spain where they have a wide range of caves overlooking the Alhambra palace which have been carved out of the living rock on the cliff face and supports a substantial community. But British authorities have a much less lax attitude to that sort of thing so nothing like that is available over here and we’re stuck on that one!
How about a caravan and a life on the open road? Well there is a travelling community within the UK, but they do tend to have a bit of a bad reputation and you could find your fellow travellers are not the sort of people that you would want to spend any quality time with. Also the public in general does not always have a love of the travelling community in general so you may be constantly moved on.
No there is only one real alternative if you want all the comforts of home without most of the costs involved. You will have to buy a houseboat and spend your days on the canals and inland waterways of England and Wales. It sounds unviable but more and more people are looking at this as a possible option for living in the UK. There is even a group for people who live on boats , the Residential Boat Owners Association, RBOA. Their website is www.rboa.org.uk and has almost all the info you will need to start living on a boat.
Unlike on land mobile living, staying on a boat has no stigma at all attached to it. It’s seen as an idyllic way to spend time and when you do moor up for the night you are unlikely to be evicted or have the locals demonstrating against your presence.
When We Buy Homes, whether on dry land or afloat , we have to go through a certain process at the start . A lot of us are familiar with the process when We Buy Houses — you deal with estate agents, solicitors, the Land Registry, removal companies and the utility companies. Then you’re in and cooking your first pizza. The process for buying a boat is different. Firstly you will most likely buy your first boat from a boatyard or a boat broker. The transaction will be not just the boat itself but everything that is on the boat. That’s the way it works. You will also need a mooring and these are a bit scarce particularily close to cities. Also you will need a license from British Waterways and these will run into hundreds depending which waterway you are going to have your mooring on. British waterways will not issue a license unless you have a C of C, Certificate of Conformance – a sort of MOT for boats on the inland waterways. You will also have to have insurance in case you do some damage with your boat and this will be a minimum of two hundred and seventy pounds per annum
We all expect certain standards when We Buy Homes and fitting out a boat shares many things in common with furnishing a house. If you have already got into the mind where you think “Sell My House and buy a boat” on a regular basis you may be wondering what home comforts you can expect on your floating home. The answer is, depending on your choice of boat, just about everything you can expect on land. Most residential boat owners choose a traditional narrowboat which, whilst most people are of the opinion that these were built many decades ago, usually date from the sixties through to the ones that are constructed today. Thus when you come to buy one you will often find that it has all the comforts you will need such as central heating, proper four ring stove, wood burning stove linked to the heating, a two way fridge freezer , functioning shower etc. In fact some of the luxury boats can have a four poster bed an even a small bath!
A way of getting around the somewhat expensive mooring requirement is to declare that you are going to be engaged in “Continuous Cruising” meaning you will moor up anywhere legal on the waterways for a period of no longer than two weeks at a time. Only really suitable for people that have no real requirement to be in a fixed place for any length of time but maybe a good option for retired couples or people suited to mobile working.
Other points to consider are such things as schooling, health care facilities, electric generator power and bottled gas provision. Too much in fact for a short article so I recommend that you visit the RBOA website given previously and send off for their booklet on residential boat ownership but I think there’s proper alternative to land based living here and one that will become more popular as time goes on and our housing shortages becomes even worse than it is today.
