House for Sale, Bizarre Bricked Up Kitchen Window?

PasturesNew

Is it just me, or does this look really odd? Love to know what's going on.

http://media.rightmove.co.uk/11k/10786/32738279/10786_PEA1001060_IMG_02_0000_max_620x414.jpg

From the photos that wall's got uninterrupted views into the neighbour's garden, so maybe the neighbours objected when it was converted to a 1-bed bungalow.

lynzpower

I thnik its the garden wall built really close! Or could it be in a basement?

PasturesNew

Up that side is definitely a garden pathway/access.... here's the full link: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-18086430.html

There's a floorplan too, so it's theoretically easy to work out what's what.

Salz

The side wall is made of that brick shown in the window, so I am guessing it is a trick of the light making it look as if it is bricked up.

WelshNic

Picture 4 looks like the bedroom windows are partially bricked up too

Francesanne

I think you might have hit the nail on the head in your 2nd paragraph. Saw a neighbours from hell type of programme a while back and family had a similiar problem & had horrible brick while inches from their bedroom window. Shame because it's a nice property but that view would deter most people.

LydiaJ

I don't think it should matter, since the kitchen also has a second window looking out onto the garden. It's rather stupid of the agent to have taken the kitchen photo from that angle - they should have taken one showing the other window and the view out into the garden - the window that can be seen on the left in the first picture taken from the garden looking at the bungalow.

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

... It's rather stupid of the agent ....

That's probably how he got the job; people hire people 'just like them'. I think it's an industry pre-requisite.

ceridwen

Definitely odd. I would assume it was a paranoid next door neighbour - who had gone and built up a new wall deliberately after the extension was done.

So - two choices:
1. Assume that the neighbour might be awkward in all sorts of other ways and avoid the place

OR

2. Buy the place - BUT - point out to the vendor that it was all rather odd having a wall so close and, in view of the work needing doing to re-arrange the kitchen (ie putting the kitchen sink underneath the other window instead and filling in the current undersink window). Hence a whole new kitchen. Also - needing to do something about the walls blocking some of the sitting room window - ie putting attractive plants over it and the likely trouble with the neighbour about doing that. Conclusion = prepared to buy the place BUT at a LARGE discount - sort of "I'll take it off your hands for £70k if you like...." level of discount.

From the neighbours' pov - one must assume that they had a previous (rather lower) wall there and were able to look over into a garden where that extension now is and knew no-one would be able to stand there quietly looking over into their garden (ie looking out the sink window) and were upset at losing the view of a neighbouring garden - but felt they could at least protect the level of privacy they previously had. So - one cant really blame the neighbours for what they did - but definitely that flat needs pricing in accordance with what they did. I assume the neighbours thought the extension would be priced at a level commensurate with them putting that wall up - and, at the least, arent bothered about the vendor having to charge tens of thousands of £s less for the extension than he otherwise would.

Actually - I'm talking myself into thinking that if I were the neighbours - then I would have put a wall up myself. I really hate garden grabbing at the best of times - and if it impinged on my privacy - then it would be a case of "Get the builders in NOW - giving me quotes".

The neighbours will likely be hoping that no-one will ever buy the extension and I would say the only way anyone who buys that extension will get on with the neighbours is if they tell them that they managed to buy this for only £50k or similar price (ie the vendor has only made enough to cover their costs - but no profit at all) and maybe puts some tall shrubs (not trees!) up along the wall - so the neighbour gets a bit or their privacy back (as the extension owner couldnt see through those shrubs) and the neighbour also gets to look at plants (ie rather than the extension wall).

*****************

Is this what you were thinking of doing Pastures? - ie putting in an offer low enough to reflect that wall there?

m_13

I'm struggling to understand this house too: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33333227.html

It looks like the '3 bedroom cottage" is an extension at the back and you don't get any of the gorgeous period property shown on the first photograph but how do you get in?

ceridwen

m_13 wrote: »

I'm struggling to understand this house too: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33333227.html

It looks like the '3 bedroom cottage" is an extension at the back and you don't get any of the gorgeous period property shown on the first photograph but how do you get in?

Thats my conclusion also - ie that the "mews cottage" is a modern extension that got built onto the period property on the street. This is another property that is garden grabbing then.

The entrance looks as if its a door into that tiny shower room:eek:. That is an odd thing for them to have done. Given that they've garden grabbed in the first place - then it would have been better for them to use that tiny little entrance room as an entrance lobby - after all there is a bathroom elsewhere in the extension. I presume they did that because "modern standards" are that everywhere with 3 or more bedrooms has a second bathroom of some description (but its usually by shoehorning an "en suite bathroom" into a main bedroom that isnt big enough anyway - but no matter...they shoehorn it in anyway...

What I also wonder about this extension is what garden the owners of the main part of the house have?