Buying an abandoned house

SilverbirchWolf

There is a house on my street which looks as though no-one lives in it, it is completely overgrown with plant life, and all the doors and windows are peeling (not in keeping with the rest of the street!). There is also a car on the driveway which hasn't moved in 3 years and has creepers growing all over it. Having done a Land Registry search, the owners are a married couple who are registered at the address, but I refuse to believe that anyone lives there, they can't do! I have to assume that they have died or gone into care. I would love to look at buying the house and renovating it; how would I go about beginning this process? Knocking on the door has yielded no response, and the neighbours have no idea, they've only lived there for a couple of years.

Dan-Dan

SilverbirchWolf wrote: »

There is a house on my street which looks as though no-one lives in it, it is completely overgrown with plant life, and all the doors and windows are peeling (not in keeping with the rest of the street!). There is also a car on the driveway which hasn't moved in 3 years and has creepers growing all over it. Having done a Land Registry search, the owners are a married couple who are registered at the address, but I refuse to believe that anyone lives there, they can't do! I have to assume that they have died or gone into care. I would love to look at buying the house and renovating it; how would I go about beginning this process? Knocking on the door has yielded no response, and the neighbours have no idea, they've only lived there for a couple of years.

Write to them , recorded delivery , give it a couple of weeks , then see if it was signed for , either at the house or at the sorting office , at least then you`ll know if anyones picking up the mail

somethingcorporate

Tricky one there. Have you done some googling/facebooking of the supposed owners to see if that throws up anything?

Maybe they have emigrated but kept it as a bolt-hole back in this country (this would be my best guess). In which case tracking them down is going to be very hard.

somethingcorporate

Dan-Dan wrote: »

Write to them , recorded delivery , give it a couple of weeks , then see if it was signed for , either at the house or at the sorting office , at least then you`ll know if anyones picking up the mail

It's a good point, you could have a chat with a friendly postie to see if they are having mail redirected or not.

societys_child

Don't go in the basement . . .:eek:

nubbins

You may find a good number of other people/developers have already been round there, houses like these do not go unnoticed especially in a good area. There was a couple of similar properties in my area and after chatting to a developer about another house he told me he had posted a letter to one of these every week for months with no reply and he was not the only one. I think you have to be in the right place at the right time and be very very persistent. Its worth trying because you could catch the owners at the right time but do not get your hopes up too much.

Good luck

cloo

Be aware that it could be unmortgagable (sp?) if the structure's in a really bad way. One place near us that had been empty for ages came up for sale a few months back and was cash buyers only because of the condition.

Running_On_Empty

Google empty house local council officer... you will find a lot of info. Contact your local council and talk to the empty property officer.

fishpond

As has already been said, postie would be my 1st port of call.
Possibly the local council would be my second.

Cheeky_Monkey

If the owners have had their post re-directed, how would the postman know their new address as he/she wouldn't have any letters in his/her bag for them?

As suggested, the Empty Homes Officer at your local council would be my first port of call.

davidmcn

Cheeky_Monkey wrote: »

If the owners have had their post re-directed, how would the postman know their new address

Because (as I understand it) redirection is done by the posties when they are sorting the mail for their walk.

They shouldn't give out the address to nosy third parties though.