House attached to Listed Building, survey?

WeeThistle

Hi all,

We are first time buyers, mortgage is in place and trying to find a house. We found one (a converted windmill) and had to pull out after the survey was done as the bank wanted to put on a large retention for issues with the roof.

We have now found another house which we like, but I'm not sure whether we should put in an offer as I'm worried we may have problems at survey stage again. The house is a detached property, but on a small part of the side elevation is attached to a Listed Building (now disused and a little bit rundown). It looks like it may just be a barn of some description, not 100% sure. Is it likely that the surveyor would look at the Listed Building next door as a problem and we may run into issues? I don't want to shell out another £500 for something which we may not be able to progress on.

Many thanks!

WeeThistle x

Doozergirl

The fact that it is a Listed Building shouldn't particularly affect anything. Is it an outbuilding that belongs to a house?

We can't give much else help without seeing how they join. Most houses in this country are attached to something else. The does come with some element of risk if the neighbours don't maintain their side.

How the other building might affect you would really depends on how the roof is joined and whether the ground levels are similar. But neither should be a particular deal breaker if it is a small section of join. Worst case might be that you end up maintaining a small corner of the other building, like some flashing maybe, if the owner is truly not interested in keeping it nice.

But you haven't given us much to go on and surveys are for a reason. You can renegotiate, they don't have to involve walking away. Houses do need maintenance and you will never avoid that, especially with older houses.

lincroft1710

If your house is attached to another building it is not detached. Being attached to a Listed Building may be a problem. You can find out about the building here

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/

If this building is falling into disrepair then the owner will be forced to repair it, or it will be repaired and they will be sent the bill.

WeeThistle

Thanks for your reply :-)

It's not an outbuilding that belongs to the house, it's on the boundary and joins on to a narrow part of the house we're looking at that has utility room and WC downstairs and bathroom upstairs. Not too sure how to attach an image to show you but it's a flat roofed two storey extension onto the same height flat roof of the barn thing. It's half the width of the main house, so just joined on a small part.

Thanks again x

WeeThistle

lincroft1710 wrote: »

If your house is attached to another building it is not detached. Being attached to a Listed Building may be a problem. You can find out about the building here

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/

If this building is falling into disrepair then the owner will be forced to repair it, or it will be repaired and they will be sent the bill.

Thanks for your reply. I would agree with you it's not a detached house, but this is how it is advertised and it is not attached to another house so can see the logic there.

Not too worried about the Listed Building or I wouldn't be looking to buy the house, I'm a town planner so know the score with these things. Just wondering whether it will be considered with the survey or not.

Thanks x

Cakeguts

Sometimes there are limits to what you can do to a building that is close to a listed building.

G_M

We have just sold our mother's house. One of a pair of semi-detatched cottages.

For reasons I don't understand (and nor did the council Planners or Conservation Area officers!) the adjoined cottage was listed, but our mum's was not.

This did not seem to present any issues to the buyers or their mortgage lenders.