To refuse to buy her house and tell her why?

[StinkyTowels]

A few years ago my sister bought a beautiful period property with all original features. Victorian fireplaces, hand crafted bannisters, Victorian carved coving, the head things that pop out of the coving - I adored the house and always said if she sells it, I’ll buy it.

That was of course until she “modernised it”. Stripped out all original features, painted everything white, installed a clinically white and shiny kitchen, lobbed the standalone bath out of the window and replaced it with a spa bath … I kept telling her she was ruining the house but she said I was old fashioned and nobody likes that shit anymore.

The house is historically important, a local famous post lived there, from the outside it looks like a grand Victorian villa. On the inside it look like a London penthouse. It’s awful.

last year she decided to sell it but rather than coming straight to me she tried to sell it for much more than I would have ever paid due to the “improvements” she’d made. LOTS of viewings but no offers - all feedback was exactly the same - put off by interior. Lack of original features etc

So she’s come back to me - I’m now saying I don’t want it either for the same reasons. She’s fuming at me and says I “promised” I would buy it. In its original state I did yes but once she started pulling it apart I very clearly told her I would no longer buy it as she’s wrecked it. She won’t accept this however and is already eying up another house she’d like to ruin/renovate.

AIBU to be glad she can’t sell the bloody thing. It should be illegal to do what she’s done to that belle house

For the title YANBU
The final sentence where you ask of YABU, yes hugely unreasonable. I can't imagine ever being happy that my sister was in a position where she couldn't sell her house.

YABU to be glad that she can't sell it. Not sure why you are glad about this

There should be a law against ruining beautiful old properties in this way!

Until recently I worked in an estate agency and I’ve seen this so many times! The one that had us all groaning in the office was a chocolate box thatched cottage in a small village with roses round the door, country cottage garden etc. The owner ripped out all the flower beds, repositioned the path and driveway so they were all straight lines and tidy manicured lawns, finished off with a gravelled car park in front. The original had been featured in Country Life but honestly it was on the market for months and I don’t think think it ever sold but I left the office last year.

I'm with all of you on keeping period things. But!!!!

We just moved into a Victorian house and are having a quandary. The fireplace is nice in itself but very space consuming, if we take it out there will be loads more room and also comfort and cosiness if we get the gas fire as a modern glass front, not a big drafty hole and a grate. Also a conservatory that is bloody freezing and energy inefficient - we need to improve it but will lose the original wooden doors I am sure. And ceiling lights - they're OK but all shadowy and dangly and make the whole place so gloomy. Original door furniture - beautiful!! But none of the doors shut and the lock mechanisms are loose, they pinch your fingers and make a massive clatter in the night.

I as all for the period things but in terms of livability it is stretching us to our limits!!!
So in our horror we are going to be people who take out not all but some of the glorious features.

She won’t accept this however

What on earth is she saying-the conversation is a non-starter?!

Her:- You have to buy my house!
You:- No, I don't. You took out all the feature that I liked-why would I want to buy it now?!
Her:-but you promised.
You:- I'm not buying it.
Her:- oh.

Absolutely this.

YABU to "...be glad she can’t sell the bloody thing." Reeks of schadenfreude.

I bought a house that a previous owner had taken out the old fireplace but I tracked one down on eBay and had it put back in. I felt so pleased when a visitor admired the fireplace and couldn't believe it had not always been there. I got some old tiles to do the hall too. It took forever to get enough to start the hall.

She surely can’t believe this was ever a serious “promise”. Even if the house was still in the exact condition it was when she bought it, she couldn’t hold you to buying it at the exact time she wanted to sell - it would only ever have been a first option arrangement. What if, in the time since making this so-called promise, you’d had a child/more children and therefore needed more space in your next house, or to be in a better school catchment area? Or you’d met a new partner and wanted to move away, or had to relocate for work?

It’s a shame about the house, but to be honest, she’s inadvertently done you a favour. Buying a house from a family member sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Most house buying involves some level of negotiation, which is much easier to do with a stranger. If you offer £10k below asking price (for example) and the seller rejects it, you either offer more or walk away - either way, you don’t have to worry about what the seller thinks of you afterwards. Offer a family member that deal and suddenly it’s “OMG I can’t believe my own sister would try to cheat me out of £10k!!”. And what if the survey showed up that the roof needs serious repairs, or the boiler needs replacing? It’s a lot harder to ask (or tell) a family member to sort that or lose their sale.

I don’t necessarily disagree. However, I do think it’s easier to have this view when the property is of a widely loved style!

For most of my adult life, original Victorian features have been seen as highly desirable. It’s easy to think it’s always been this way and that everyone has always felt the same. But you only have to go back as far as the 60s and 70s to find a time when these features were torn out as a matter of course. They weren’t “period” - they were just old. Several on here have been saying it shouldn’t be allowed, why isn’t it illegal, but the problem is that unless a property is listed, the value of original features is subjective. Even if the majority agree on their value.

Be honest - would you still take the “I’m just the custodian” approach if we were talking about a 70s avocado bathroom or an 80s orange pine kitchen? Who decides what’s a lovely period feature and what’s just old tat?

To answer your last question: I’d not buy it. I’ve looked at art deco and “American” style houses and didn’t like them. I left them for someone who did like them (I hope). I prefer older style places with period features. But I take your point.
incidentally in the 60s/70s when many fabulous buildings were being torn down there were many protests from ordinary people but local councils and architects believed they knew best and gave us architecture that can induce depression in even the most happy of people.

For most of my adult life, original Victorian features have been seen as highly desirable. It’s easy to think it’s always been this way and that everyone has always felt the same

Victorian period properties vary hugely though. In my opinion, what may be desirable on a spacious villa is markedly less so on a pokey urban terrace situated on a never ending road of identical boxes.

Yep. I wouldn’t buy a Victorian property with original features. Couldn’t be arsed with the restoration and/or not being able to change anything to my own taste without horrific guilt at destroying such beautiful work- I do appreciate it’s gorgeous, I just wouldn’t want to live with it!

it’s just not my taste. I prefer the style of 20’s-50’s era. Even 60’s and 70’s houses while not particularly stylish often have fantastic spacious layouts.

i’m probably they type of person o/p’s sister is looking for in a buyer- however I wouldn’t be paying “Victorian property” prices for new build decor. So she’d have to come down in price.

I love an original feature, and I'm not a fan of the kind of decor the OP's sister seems to go for, but I'm a bit surprised at the total polarisation of some of these answers. Maybe it's because I grew up in a Victorian town and now live in a village with absolutely loads of Victorian (and earlier) terraces and semis, but to me these are normal houses. I have one. What I like about them is the mix of original decorative features (I have a beautiful ceiling rose, nice tiles in the porch which incidentally pretty much every house here has identical ones to), and the lived in feel that comes from generations of normal people adapting the house to their needs. I like the battered pitch pine floors, which were built to withstand a lot of abuse, but I'm not precious about the UPVC windows which most houses here now have.

As a suggestion can you store all the parts you remove in a shed or something with a photo of how they were? That way a future buyer can choose to put them back in.

UPVC windows cheapen any property. The 'period' style ones are particularly ghastly and never look realistic, despite what the homeowners choose to believe.

That's kind of my point, though - no-one's expecting them to look realistic. They're just getting on with living in the houses. You wouldn't do it with a perfectly preserved property in a conservation area, and you probably wouldn't do it if you were the only person on the street to, but here these are just normal, solid houses that normal people live in. I think that approach has its own kind of integrity, even if it's not as pretty.

but the problem is that unless a property is listed, the value of original features is subjective.

Our house is listed - but only the exterior at the front. None of the interior is protected. Apparently when the previous owners bought it the inglenook fireplace was boarded over with a gas fire hung on the boards. Bloody vandals. 🙈

Yabu- it’s nothing to do with you and I don’t believe for a second she’s throwing a massive strop about you not buying it.

since you seem to have told her endlessly what a poor taste house destroyer she is I can’t imagine there is any big reveal required as to why you’re (still) not interested

It is fashion isn't it. I bought a 4 bed Edwardian house in the 70s. I needed 4 beds and couldn't afford a modern house with 4 beds so I bought the very unfashionable Edwardian semi. It is now very fashionable and the area has become very desirable and worth far more than the houses I couldn't afford back then.

The reality is it is the same house in the same area but now it is a trendy fashionable house in a trendy fashionable area.

I’ve just moved into a listed building and the previous owners did exactly the same thing with the fireplace - I took great pleasure in getting rid of the gas fire yesterday!

In my house there was a hideous fitted wardrobe that I ripped out of the main bedroom and found they'd hacked massive chunks out of the coving to put it in. The paintwork underneath was an attractive combination of orange-on-woodchip and blue coving, which is what the pre-fitted-wardrobe owners liked.

She’s a cheeky mare!

YANBU at all for not buying it and for telling her the reason - you made it clear at the time too that you were no longer interested.

YABU for being glad though- that’s a bit mean spirited, even if it hopefully does teach her a lesson.

I guess at least they only boarded it up, they didn’t do something that couldn’t be reversed?