Would you buy this house? Please help

flora48

Walk away now.

Radiantsoul

I would be pretty nervous about buying it and the fact I would be might mean others would be too.

On the other hand if the price is right then it might tempt me.

daisiegg

Update, for anyone interested...!

I have been phoning everyone I could think of this morning. I called another local estate agent for some impartial advice at the suggestion of my mortgage broker, and he was very helpful. He looked up the house for me and looked at other houses in the area and said he knew the area well, he said we are getting the house for a really good price (we knew that - we are in the unusual position of being first time buyers purchasing a £600,000 house and they needed to move quickly, so we were the only people interested who had no chain underneath us) so he thinks that even if the fence goes up, we would be unlikely to lose money in the future. He said that the house is very nice and in an incredibly desirable area where houses rarely come up for sale, and that some people would even like the idea of the garden being super private (!) and it's easy to put in trees, hedges, shrubs etc to disguise the fence (IF it ever went up, which doesn't seem likely). He said yes, if the fence went up it might make the house more difficult to sell, but he said if he were the estate agent listing it and trying to sell it in the future, he wouldn't be asking for any less than we are paying for it if it had a fence.

I also called our own estate agent (for some less than impartial advice!). He knew about the care home and said that it is for people with down's syndrome (and also took offence at my saying it was a 'mental hospital', as apparently his daughter has down's syndrome...) but he DIDN'T know anything about the fence. He said he would get onto it straight away and would contact head office (which I had no luck with earlier, but suspect that a pushy man might get further than me, who is shy and timid on the phone and too easy to brush off!) and if necessary he will drive over to the home and speak to the owner and ask them about the fence situation.

So....it seems all is not lost?!

Thanks again for all the replies. Tune in in probably about 10 minutes' time for the next installement of the Drama of Daisie's House Buying Dilemma...and thanks for bearing with me! I promise I'm not always this crazy and frantic...

kentmum1973

How big is your garden? If the garden is huge, and you can disguise with trees then I would go for it. I prefer a big bank of trees to a stark fence anyway. Would it influence back access to your property in anyway?

daisiegg

kentmum1973 wrote: »

How big is your garden? If the garden is huge, and you can disguise with trees then I would go for it. I prefer a big bank of trees to a stark fence anyway. Would it influence back access to your property in anyway?

Nope it wouldn't influence access in any way.

The garden is not huge unfortunately but it's not small. I think it could be disguised with trees (there are already very tall trees around the border of the garden, but obviously half the year these have no leaves so won't help! would need evergreen trees or something)

hethmar

The point is though, the vendors lied to you didnt they ("small old peoples home"?) So they are obvious very nervous about you backing out - perhaps they have lost sales before because of this. They also didnt mention about the fence which you say the locals had a meeting to object to. Personally Id either walk - who knows what the institution could become in a few years hence? - or knock the price down hard.

If you are FTB with that sort of money !!! then people will be over the moon to sell to you - there will be other houses

kentmum1973

What size are we talking? Is is 100 feet or so? I guess the closer the fence is to the house the more imposing it will be. You said two sides to the garden, assuming most gardens are three sided, with the property making up the 4th side, does this mean the fence will run right up to property?

daisiegg

hethmar wrote: »

The point is though, the vendors lied to you didnt they? So they are obvious very nervous about you backing out. They also didnt mention about the fence which you say the locals had a meeting to object to. Personally Id either walk - who knows what the institution could become in a few years hence? - or knock the price down hard.

If you are FTB with that sort of money !!! then people will be over the moon to sell to you - there will be other houses

Mmmmm. I'm not sure about the lying thing. We were both racking our brains to remember what the woman said when we looked round the garden, because we were talking about whether it was overlooked etc. She did say something about a care home or something, which I think we interpreted as an old people's home. It 'technically' is a care home so 'technically' she wasn't lying, but you're right, they didn't mention the fence issue.

I've been wondering about lowering the price. We've already knocked £40,000 off the asking price and I think they had to negotiate down the house they are buying in order to meet that. I don't think they could go any lower so they'd probably walk. And I REALLY want this house I know, I know, I am being emotional and thinking with my heart on a finance forum. Probably not the best plan of attack!

hethmar

And whilst its ok for people to say its a home for adult downs syndrome AT THE MOMENT - it would appear to have a licence for much more worrying conditions? The fence application is a worry - ok they dont need it for people with Downs but why did they think they may need it in future? If they have had planning permission okayed once, it would be much easier for them to get a renewal of the application through.

daisiegg

kentmum1973 wrote: »

What size are we talking? Is is 100 feet or so? I guess the closer the fence is to the house the more imposing it will be. You said two sides to the garden, assuming most gardens are three sided, with the property making up the 4th side, does this mean the fence will run right up to property?

To be completely honest I really really don't know about the size of the garden but I'm pretty sure it's quite a bit smaller than 100 feet.

I got confused - just looked at the plans again and it wouldn't be two sides of the garden, just one (the back, the one parallel to the house and the longest side). There are about 6 other properties that would be even worse affected than ours if the fence were to go up. The communication at the time from the CEO of the company was that they wanted to be 'good neighbours', didn't want the expense of the fence themselves and would not do it if they could find a way around it, basically.