Found an abandoned property - need advice

eddddy

Section62 said:

Typically property doesn't become run down and/or uninhabited without there being a complicated backstory, which quite often makes a quick/easy sale impossible.

I'd agree. I think it's unlikely that the owners would have just "lost interest" in the property and left it to rot - and would just sell cheaply to the first person to contact them. (And you may not be the first person to contact them anyway.)

ProDave

Don't assume from the pictures nobody lives there.

2 doors away from a friend is a house in similar state.  The garden is completely overgrown, front and back, big trees growing, more like a dense forest.  Rusted out long dead car parked on the drive, not moved for decades.  You can barely get to the front door, yet someone is living in it.  They obviously have no interest in maintaining the property.

FreeBear

ProDave said:

Don't assume from the pictures nobody lives there.

2 doors away from a friend is a house in similar state.  The garden is completely overgrown, front and back, big trees growing, more like a dense forest.  Rusted out long dead car parked on the drive, not moved for decades.  You can barely get to the front door, yet someone is living in it.  They obviously have no interest in maintaining the property.

It is not always about a lack of interest in maintaining a property. It could be financial, or there may be health/age related issues.

user1977

If it's something like an executry involved, I would expect the executors etc to put it on the open market when they're good and ready to do so - I doubt anybody is quietly waiting until somebody approaches them to buy it off-market.

HampshireH

TripleH said:

Are those yellow and white things warning stickers in the windows?

Look like CCTV warnings

HRH_MUngo

There was a house like that near me for years.

Everybody assumed it was abandoned, but no, a lady lived in it.  She didn't want to change anything as it was her parents' house, she wanted to keep it exactly the same.  Even when some local people offered to tidy her garden for her, she wouldn't allow them to.  This went on for about twenty years, to my knowledge.

She eventually went to live with a friend, just left her house and never returned to it, but never wanted to sell it either.  It was like this for about ten years.

When she died it was sold by her executors and now provides a nice little rental home for a family.

So don't assume the owner wants to sell it.

There is no harm asking though!

Loza2016

I wouldn’t presume nobody lives there. My current renovation project looked about 10 times worse than this and somebody was actually living there. Gentlemen was disabled so never went out. 

Norman_Castle

p_m said:

There seems to be a path through the grass and the properties bins don't look abandoned. Have you tried knocking the door or speaking to the neighbours?

caprikid1

Norman_Castle said:

p_m said:

There seems to be a path through the grass and the properties bins don't look abandoned. Have you tried knocking the door or speaking to the neighbours?

100% not abandoned. The bins and the path would be covered within 12 months. The vegetation is not that long.

GDB2222

caprikid1 said:

Norman_Castle said:

p_m said:

There seems to be a path through the grass and the properties bins don't look abandoned. Have you tried knocking the door or speaking to the neighbours?

100% not abandoned. The bins and the path would be covered within 12 months. The vegetation is not that long.

It might have someone keeping an eye on it. It’s strange to leave the place empty for 15 years, though.