Richard Greenland
This blog is partly a tribute to Samantha Collet’s excellent blog series What Sam Saw Today. A friend asked me to look at an auction lot in Larkhall, Bath, on with Strakers. It was advertised as being attached to the pub, but having planning consent for conversion to residential use. As you can see from the photos it appears to be a terraced house that has been incorporated into the pub and had the windows blocked up, possibly for use as a function room. My friend thought the guide price of £95K looked enticing as it was in an affluent area and might easily sell for over £200k after some fairly straightforward works to open up the windows, re-fit kitchen and bathroom etc.
FRONT VIEW
When I looked inside all I could see was a single largish room that had been used as a store for beer barrels and pumping equipment. There was no staircase or means of getting upstairs. I asked the agent how I could view the top floor – “There’s no access”, he said. “No access?”, I replied, “So how can I take a look upstairs?” This is when the truth finally came out.
REAR VIEW
“There is no upstairs.” The front wall was just a façade, it had all the appearance of a house from the outside and had fooled both my friend and me, as well as others who had come to view, but it was just a flat-roofed single storey building. To get change of use to residential you’d have to build the next floor and roof from scratch. And that’s only if Building Control would accept use of the existing foundations, which they might not as they were almost certainly too shallow by contemporary standards. You might well be required to pull it down and start again, in which case you’d be better off with a vacant lot. So a wasted trip, I suspect not just for me but for many others. It would have been so much better if the auctioneer or agent had made it clear that there was no house, and would have saved a lot of people a lot of time. Cheers, Rich
This nick guy is a right tool. Love this part “…I had thought that we might be becoming a large Forum…” when the forum stats say “Most users ever online was 184″. LOL, Nick, are you delusional? We know you’re ugly, you don’t have to be thick too. You’ve gotta take a long hard look at yourself, nick. what sort of a person must you be to make total strangers on the internet dislike you so much? A twatty sort of person. Here’s hoping you die a horrible and untimely death. The less morons like you in the world, the better.
Its my great pleasure to visit your page and to enjoy your excellent topics, I appriciate it very much. I know that you invested much attention for these topics, as all of them make sense and are very useful.
A thorough insight into Renting Flats in London and ideas I will use on my blog. You’ve obviously spent some time on this. Excellent stuff!
Rich
Amazing what people try to get away with. Back to the old adage, it is always worth going and checking a property out.
And interesting comment about Nick being a tool! Not sure how relevant it is to “the house that wasn’t..”
Rich
Amazing what people try to get away with. Back to the old adage, it is always worth going and checking a property out.
Nick
And interesting comment about being a tool! Not sure how relevant it is to “the house that wasn’t..”
Hi there Louise! Thanks for the reply and thanks to Deap and Xbox also.
Louise the only reason the trolling comment was allowed past moderation is that Nick Parkin found it amusing. Everything has to be approved by either Nick or myself so it is here on sufferance only.
Rich – just goes to show how they try and sell anything at auction! Due diligence is a must!
Hi there Sam! Yes, DD is a must and NEVER buying blind. Imagine if you bought this blind!!! It’s a sore spot with me right now as someone has just put a blind bid in for something I was trying to buy. I know it’s blind bcs we own the rest of the flats in the block and have been working very hard to keep people out!!! They have agreed to pay more than twice what we hoped to get it for and more than it’s worth. So everyone loses except the bank
Never mind, there’s always another deal