Inherited nightmare house - what to do?

[TomHanksintheMoneyPit]

Last year I inherited my late mother's upper floor maisonette, which was in an appalling condition due to my mother being disabled and mentally ill and a hoarder, and a squatter living in the house for five months after her death who trashed the place.

The place is basically structurally sound and does not have any mould or mildew, and no problems with insect or rodent infestation or anything like that. But it's in a terrible condition and has not been touched since the 1970s. The bathroom and kitchen both need to be ripped out and replaced. It probably needs a new boiler. Every room (even the bathroom!) has stained, threadbare carpets. I've pulled some of the carpets back and the floorboards underneath are in reasonable condition albeit would need a fair bit of work (sanding, staining and varnishing) to make them look good. All the rooms except one have ancient tatty wallpaper. The doors, door frames and window frames are filthy and yellowed and would need to be deep-cleaned then re-painted white. The massive garden is a jungle with knee-high brambles and at least two fallen down sheds. The garage is so jammed with stuff you can't even get inside.

I have health problems, do not drive, and it takes me 90 minutes on (free) public transport to get to her house. I don't have anyone to help me and earn a pretty small salary, although I do have a generous cash inheritance which is in an ISA. I generally can only visit her house once a week, twice at most, and spend perhaps 7 hours there. It's taken me a year just to clear out her personal possessions and furniture. On the other hand I'm not bad at DIY/decorating and feel confident in being able to do stuff like prep and paint walls or put down laminate flooring.

I'm now at the point of having to decide when to put it on the market, and how much work to do in advance. People with experience in selling houses, and in particular selling or buying fixer uppers, would you recommend:

1. Putting it on the market as-is, as a fixer upper, in the knowledge that the sheer look of the place is so off-putting.

1. Doing superficial DIY work to make it look more appealing, eg. stripping the old wallpaper, giving the walls a fresh coat of paint, cleaning and re-painting the doors, ripping up the carpets and putting some cheap laminate floor tiles down, just so that the property looks clean, neutral, and not totally neglected. But leave the kitchen and bathroom and sell it with the understanding the new owners will need to do some work in installing a new kitchen and bathroom, new boiler, fixing the garden, etc.

1. Invest the contents of my ISA into paying someone to do it up properly including installing a new kitchen and bathroom, before putting it on the market.

I'm leaning towards #2, but I'm uncertain exactly what I should do, vs what I should leave. I keep thinking of new things that need fixing or replacing, like the garden fence, and going AAARRRRGGGHH! Any advice?

@MsTSwift

Can’t believe the suggestion to get kind hearted folks to do all the horrible grunt work for free so the op can make abit more profit! What cheek!

At what point did I suggest for free? The mutual aid society means in return for helping, the guy who asked for help for the neighbour offered to tutor my DD in maths next year for free. There was cake and tea all day. And actually you do get some thoroughly nice people who like to help...

Surely you’d be wisest to ask at least 3 local estate agent in your area
To a property developer that perhaps would go for it even if you did do option 2

An jungle garden is hardly going to put them off as they will know the workers to get that sorted and how my much would cost them etc

Get the estate agents in before you lift a finger. We were advised to leave the house "dressed" ie with enough furniture in each room to indicate its purpose. We'd already chucked out all the bedding, but draping an empty duvet cover over the bed was enough. Looked the part in the photos, got viewings.
I'd expected a developer would buy it but a family bought it and moved in without changing anything.

Actually thinking about the stamp duty holiday I’d all it ASAP as it is

Sell

I'd be inclined to renovate the place and rent it out, you will receive guaranteed income for yourself then. Don't use an agent though, they are money for doing nothing.

OP would equally get an income if she sold the place and invested the proceeds, without the faff of either being the landlord herself or losing 15-20% of the rental income on a managing agent (quite apart from upkeep and the stress of non paying tenants etc).

Hi OP
Glad you’ve made some progress. I’d definitely do number 2. You’d lose a massive amount of money selling the property as is or going to auction and someone else would get an absolute bargain! You sound very capable and good for you for wanting to do what you can. I’d definitely strip the carpets and wallpaper to get rid of dirt so no one will assume the place is about to fall apart, as it’s not. People are so visual. The place will look miles better. Leave the kitchen and bathroom as is as. Paint the walls a light grey, that’s the fashion and is neutral. Definitely not magnolia, so out of fashion!!!! Probably worth getting someone in just to clear the garden (but not make it look fantastic, just tidy it up and get rid of the fallen sheds, and clear the garage!). Good luck and keep us posted. Sorry for the loss of your Mum 💗

My grandad was gifted a house that was in poor disrepair many years ago and he is still spending time doing it up. Everything needed replacing.

I wish he had just sold it as it is taking him so long and it’s a money pit but it was his decision.

It has made him feel stressed at times. I don’t think he liked the thought of someone coming along and updating it and then making more money on it.

I can see his point but wonder if it’s really worth the hassle and stress?

Sell. We are in a similar position. My brother died last year and left his house to four of us. Trouble is the cottage is in Scotland and we all reside in the south of England. One of us managed to get there and have a bit of a clear out before Covid raised its ugly head. DH and I were going to go and then lockdown struck and then it became a problem. The cottage does need a spruce up but if it was in the south of England we would buy it as we love it. . Distance is the problem at this time so we have decided to sell. We had the added problem that my brother died in Spain so his rented flat in Spain had to be sorted out which meant another brother had to spend time over there sorting that out. To top that now that brother's wife has had a stroke and as a family we just want rid.

OP by the sound of it you have your own problems without the hassle to doing work on the property. You have to travel a distance to get there on public transport and the winter weather is just around the corner. Only you can make the decision but if you sell it as is you can then invest that money in your future which I am sure your late mother would have been happy about.

Remove carpets to show floorboards. Clean walls or pay someone to make them look ok. It just needs to look sound and having great potential.

I would say

• pay for house clearance company
• get valuations from agents to sell as-is
• consider putting in auction if no interest after a short-ish period

My reasoning is that you can never get back the time that you have to put into into it......make the most of enjoying your life and the time you have.
The time it takes you to travel there before you start
The emotional toll?

(Two of us wasted 2 weeks repainting our rented home after it was trashed, before we moved back in - always regretted not spending that time doing nice things together for ourselves, travelling, whilst paying a decorator to do that.

Time is finite, make the most of it, enjoy life as much as you can.
Don’t make life difficult for yourself.

So, I've done a bit of digging around online, and the maisonette downstairs went for £350k a few years ago. Obviously it was in much, much better condition, but also only had a tiny garden, plus my mum's house has a garage and a self-contained brick building outside.

In terms of renting I think it would take several years to even begin to make back the money it would cost to take it to rentable standard, and that's not counting the months of work it would take during which I'd be paying council tax and not earning anything from it (plus I just don't want to be a landlord and have those responsibilities at this stage in my life) so for me renting it out isn't an option.

I'm in the process of contacting estate agents to book appointments.

This is what part of the garden looks like (photo shows maybe 1/4 of the garden, the part that's not under brambles). Anyone got a bucket?

I have to say too that this thread has been hugely eye opening and useful, not just in terms of the practical advice (thank you all again, a thousand times) but in terms of considering the emotional side.

I do sort of feel like I'm doing the work for my mum, to make up for the fact I couldn't do it for her in life. I genuinely spend more than ten years begging my mum to let me come and do some work on the house (not major but like stripping old wallpaper and painting walls, just so it looked nice and not like a Twilight Zone episode from 1975) and for various reasons she either refused or kept procrastinating. In a weird way it sort of feels nice to finally be able to do it. And I don't mind doing the work, now that all the personal contents and piles of stuff is gone. I have to admit that dealing with the sheer weight of Stuff was extremely hard, to the point I could sometimes hardly bare to be inside. It feels like a huge weight just to be inside the house now it's 99% empty. Lockdown has been very boring and isolating for me, and it's given me something to do (and I don't even mind the 90 minute train journey, albeit it's too tiring to do frequently.

But I guess I do need to think about what I'm doing that will genuinely be useful, and what's just sort of emotional reasons. I hope the estate agent valuations will be useful in that sense.

Good luck OP. Your post and processing of the whole situation makes a lot of sense. I really hope that you find some estate agents that can make the process easy for you and great buyers for the home. xx

When you say there's a self-contained brick building outside, that potentially could be converted into a one bedroom house. I've seen it done on our street in West London and selling for over 300k.

Option 1.
Clean the windows first and if the carpets are awful then consider ripping them out so people can see what the bare shell looks like. but don’t bother putting kitchen / bathroom in.

Sounds like a sensible approach @tomhanksinthemoneypit. Just getting the garden / garage cleared and the carpets / manky wallpaper stripped out will give potential buyers a better idea of what they are buying and will hopefully fetch a better asking price. I agree with other posters in not bothering about painting or installing a new kitchen / bathroom. Honestly not worth the expense or hassle and would likely be ripped out anyway if the new owners will need to rewire / replumb / replaster / install new boiler etc. I realise the toll this must be taking on your health and how tiring the trips back and forth must be. Can you instruct a garden / house clearance company to do the rest of the work and then you can get estate agents in to value / put on the market.

UPDATE: I've accepted an offer!!

Thanks again so much for all the help and advice.

Hooray @TomHanksintheMoneyPit! Well done, hope you enjoy yourself with the proceeds x

Aww brilliant.

Just empty it and sell it as it is. It’s not worth IMO the expense and hassle of doing anything when whoever buys it will have to do a complete renovation anyway.

I’ve bought and renovated two flats that were complete hellholes. As long as it’s priced realistically I’m sure it’ll sell fairly easily.

Option 2, enough to make it look clean and tidy on photos. I wouldn't go overboard. Probably use a decorator - being without your own transport and a fair distance away is problematic for you. Good luck! I've done loads of this but chucking paint and tools in the boot of the car is essential to the process!

The amount you'll get between 1&2 is negligible. 2 will possibly sell faster but you are more likely to get the buyer negotiating after survey and reduce the amount you get anyway.

That's a great update. Thanks for coming back to let us know. Did you paint anything in the end or was the clearing out the biggest job?