Grade II Listed: to buy or not to buy?

whitewing

The other thing you may want to consider is how easy it would be if you want to sell it on. Would it being listed mean it becomes harder to shift, especially if grants get harder to get etc, or regulations get madder If 78 from our userid is your age, you may still have a good few career years in you yet, or is this likely to be your forever home?

Gordon1978

PS: not an anonymous lottery winner - I wish!!!

namecheck

OP - you say it's nice, but not amazing (and that you are not a lottery winner).

If it is not your dream home, IMO do not proceed!

As the house needs total renovation you will have the Conservation officer (and other Council bods) on the case every step of the way. And you will be spending mega £s on something you describe as "nice"!

We have bought and sold a listed house (no problem reselling). It needed rewiring, new kitchen and bathrooms etc but not a major overhaul.

With listed houses you are limited in what you can change - which is an advantage in some ways - no inappropriate double glazing appearing etc. Although I have seen many listed houses with modern D/G or incorrect windows, and others which have been gutted to produce "open plan living".

In theory - and very often in practice - the Council can make the owner pay to remove the alterations, even if the changes were made before they bought the place.

I would be prepared to buy a listed house again, but only one which was already in pretty much the condition I wanted. And THEN I would look very carefully at any changes that might have been made and whether the necessary consents were granted for them.

Annisele

Gordon1978 wrote: »

I think we'll do our sums carefully and offer 'asking price - 7.5% - cost of restoration' and do a take it or leave it. As I say, it's a nice place but it's certainly not amazing and I'm happy to put the hours in so long as it doesn't cost us more than it's worth!

I think you should leave well alone.

If you're not an experienced property developer, the works are pretty much guaranteed to cost more than you think they will. I very much doubt that 7.5% off the asking price would remotely cover that risk.

GDB2222

To do the roof, you'll need one of those enormous scaffolding screens to go over the whole house. I've seen estimates for that alone at well over £10k. I'd have thought the roof and brickwork alone would come to £40-50k. Much more if there's a storm and water gets into the house whilst it's being done.

Extension on a listed building with demolition - allow at least £2000 per square metre.

Leveller's quote for the sash windows sound right to me, so allow £20k for the windows and doors.

Plus the house is uninhabitable whilst all this is being done. Drop your offer by £100k? They'll turn you down of course, but they may come back later if somebody else says much the same to them. Is the Conservation Officer going to serve a notice on the current owners to do the work? That will concentrate their minds on the real cost.

It's worth checking whether any of the work the CO is complaining about was done before it was listed. If so, he can't make anyone reinstate it.

It would be good to see a photo. Do you have a link to the property?

CKhalvashi

I'm another that would run away.

Some of my favorite properties in the town I live are listed (I've been in more than I care to remember), but I'd never buy one, purely due to the hassle that you're finding you'll get.

CK

Fuzzyness

my first reaction is run for the hills unless you have very deep pockets to fund every whim that the conservation officer has about restoring the building. they are a law unto themselves and you only rarely get a pragmatic one that is understanding of your circumstances. long and short of it, if you dont want to pay to reinstate the house to its former glory i'd take your leave now otherwise you'll be forking out a fortune to keep your conservation officer happy. by the sounds of it there are already a number of things that need doing so if you are going to do it at least you hav e a bench mark for what its going to cost.

phoebe1989seb

I agree that significant works to a listed building are likely to come in over estimated costs and unless you have deep pockets and the house is very special (or has the potential to be) I would think very carefully about whether to proceed. We were looking at buying a Grade II house last year that had some (very minor) work done by the vendor without LBC. It also had an extension that had been half-finished some years previously that did have consent, but which had been abandoned before completion leading us to believe something had been skimped on/done incorrectly.

We attempted to contact the Conservation Officer but they proved elusive and as we had other concerns that were nothing to do with the listed status we eventually withdrew from the purchase. The house in question was a large Georgian 5 bed village house with walled garden and cart lodge, that had the potential to be a fabulous home. It had originally been marketed at around £400k (which seemed cheap considering its size and location) and eventually sold this year for around £200k, having gone to auction after we withdrew and failed to sell :eek: We estimated it would need around £150-200k minimum spending on it, but similar houses in the village in restored condition have sold for up to £700k......

Whilst we would have been fully prepared to take the house on - having previously sympathetically restored both Tudor and Victorian houses to their former glory - we opted instead to take on a non-listed Georgian house which for a novice with listed properties such as the OP, might be a better bet, especially when he describes the house as merely "nice"

scottishblondie

Sounds like a nightmare. I recently looked at 2 listed properties - 1 a grade B and the other a grade C.

The first was a complete wreck of a townhouse that needed a total gut and refurb, including structural work. In the end my 50k estimate was blown out of the water. Once I'd totted everything up it looked more like 90k plus.

The 2nd property was smaller and initially looked like it needed less work, but once I'd found out about the sheer number of building warrant violations, planning violations and that all the work had been carried out without any listed building consent, I decided to walk away.

Unless you LOVE this house, and want to live in it forever, I'd advise you to do the same!

Ivana_Tinkle

It's only worth doing if you love the house or if you're going to make a whopping amount of money on the project. The latter only sounds likely if you can get it for a rock-bottom price. With the amount of work that needs doing, this sounds like the sort of house that's going to sell for a pittance to a cash buyer. It could be a case of asking for a massive reduction, being turned down, and then having them come back to you a few weeks or months down the line when the penny drops about quite how unsellable the house is. (Possibly when they get a letter from the conservation officer telling them about all the works they're now legally obliged to do!)