Q&A

Your questions answered. This weeking joint ownership and waterbeds.

Jointly own a house

Myself and my three siblings jointly own a house in Dublin. As three of us have homes elsewhere, we are agreed that my sister who lives in rented accommodation should buy us out. We have reached an impasse on how to have the house valued because my older brother is refusing to let an estate agent have anything to do with it on the grounds, he says, that they haven't a clue about valuations. Myself and my other brother just want the thing sorted and my sister fixed up and aren't too interested in getting the maximum amount possible. Is there anyone else who could value a house? It is a three-bed townhouse, bought when my parents traded down about eight years ago.

In the UK, chartered surveyors is the profession involved in valuations but here most members of that profession steer clear of residential property valuations. Here an estate agent is your best bet because they know the market. You are lucky in the type of house it is because it will be fairly easy to value being relatively new and presumably in a development of other similar houses.

Contact three estate agents for valuations - make sure the ones you pick are active in the area, you'll know by the "for sale" signs on other houses or the presence of large branch offices. It would be very surprising if there was a significant variation in the valuations. Agents work largely off the same information and that is based on recent house sales in the area, the general location, the condition of the property etc. Your sister is going to need such a valuation anyway to secure a mortgage. You could encourage your brother to talk to his own solicitor, accountant or even bank for guidance and maybe a recommendation for a valuer - most, he will discover, will advise contacting a local estate agent. Reading between the lines, there is the more fundamental question of whether your brother is really happy with the arrangement of your sister's buy-out. Is that what is at the root of his resistance? Does he want your sister to pay a top-of the-market price or a fair price that you can all live with? While you don't want a situation where your brother feels ripped off or bullied into an agreement, at the same time the majority of the family is in agreement and should, armed with the right information, be able to make your brother see reason.

Getting a waterbed

I am thinking of getting a waterbed. Do I have to reinforce the floor? I live in an ordinary three-bed semi built in 1994?

According to Merlin Waterbeds which manufacture and distribute waterbeds from its base in Belfast, waterbeds put less of a strain on a floor in terms of weight than regular beds because the weight is distributed evenly. There are no pressure points caused by the four legs of a regular bed. To illustrate how it works, the spokesperson for the company explained that a 5ft waterbed with two people in it (whose joint weight came in at 300lbs) would exert a weight of 29lbs per sq ft on the floor which apparently is absolutely fine in rooms where the floorboards and joists are sound to begin with.

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Unfortunately, it is not possible to respond to all questions received. The above is a representative sample of queries received. This column is a readers' service and is not intended to replace professional advice. No individual correspondence will be entered into.