Tell me i am utterly barking for wanting this house

[EdgarAllanPond]

oh you beautiful thing

it is 1) at the top of our current budget for purchase, and to afford the renovations we'd have to sell my parents house and live on site with my parents until sufficiently good to mortgage

2) a listed building so not cheap or easy to do (even given potential funding)

3) no second property, even if you got permission to convert the barn (haha, listed building permission and planning permission) then my folks would be living in the yard....not the 'two clearly separate houses' we were hoping for (have been living in parents house 8 months now...gngngn)

4) i think the walls are allowing damp to blow through, and the brickwork is part of the listing....house opposite was rendered prior to listing for probs this reason - roof will also need felting at least, presuming the timbers are ok..

5) DH would have to quit his job to renovate it, living by himself on site (until we sold parents house) then get another job in order to re-finance with a mortgage once reasonably complete....

6) chance of getting planning for running small van site/ glamping site (to fund me being a SAHM) near to virtually nil even given the pleasant 5 acres attached

basically i need Mumsnet to tell me all the woes of listed buildings, planning, and that actually it isn't that nice.....and we'd probably enjoy ourselves more in a leaky shack burning money to keep warm....

or one of you should buy it so it stops tempting me :)

(off out to shop, back in an hour or five)

[sophiedaal]

I think the solution is to stalk Georgian wrecks on Rightmove, ideally ones with listed status, wait for couples with stacks of cash to do them up/absorb the renovation pain, and then leap in when they put it back on the market after the stress of arguing about architraves and sash weights has driven them into the arms of solicitors...

[EdgarAllanPond]

Hello TMDV

have been sticking to rightmove/zoopla/scouring lesser known property websites of late, and up to my neck in DIY at mothers house readying it for sale.

so quite impatient to find somewhere new,

think of you often :)

[EdgarAllanPond]

sophie well that's it,

if it is one that someone could spend £300k on , then because - limited by size and area - can only flog for £500, you save £125k or more and potential divorce by buying it later.

[SixPackWellies]

That is exactly the sort of house that I would also covet with a pang in my heart.

but the constraints you list are possibly too great. But, it gives you a vision of what you are aiming for. :)

[eurochick]

My answer would be no. It would cost far more than you have, by the sounds of it, to get it to a liveable state. And it's not that nice. (And almost certainly cold, as has been mentioned.)

[dirtyface]

ooh i am sorry but think its a bit spooky. it reminds me of my aunt and uncle's old farmhouse. in fact its so much like it, that i did a double take when i saw it and checked where it was!

and that place was definitely haunted creepy as fook

but tbh if i had 300k to buy a house i would buy a lovely shiny flash 5 bed generic new build :o

[Hassled]

Usually I'd look at a house like that and think "get it at all costs - it's beautiful" but given everything you've said, no. It could run and run for years - in 5 years' time the bloody house and what needs doing will still be the only thing you have time to think about. It will take you over.

[EagleRay]

Oh how weird - I know this house as I've come across it on Rightmove before and had harboured silly thoughts about buying it!! (I mean really silly as have no reason to even move house)

I thought it had already sold at auction, but clearly not.

[LaundryFairy]

Vast, epic-scale money pit!

Will cost you more than you could ever imagine!

[EdgarAllanPond]

my parents would be very happy living in a caravan, and i'd be happy so long as i didn't have to share my caravan with them!

the tempting thing about this place is this "I think it's a lovely house and a feasible renovation because it seems to have well proportioned rooms that won't need knocking through. It also is made of slightly more modern materials and won't be as hard to maintain."

this - it looks like a new felting for the roof would do it. Dh and his brother could probably whip off the roof and have it back in a weekend (given scaffolding and timbers being good) the tiles don't look broken and there are spares on the barn... and fixing the guttering. and re-pointing. and wall-ties. (the side has a trellis - is this for a climbing plant or to hold the bricks in place?)and new kitchen and bathrooms. and heating. and new flooring throughout. and conversion of outbuilding (drylining, wiring, partitioning, heating, water and drainage, decoration..).....

and then you are into quite alot of money, and some things we simply we wouldn't be allowed to do ourselves...(wall tie forms part of listing)..and might not get planning for..

....but you are all very right as with no wiggle room it just isn't safe. as a listed building we could even be forced to sell if we couldn't afford necessary repairs.....and it has, at best, 4 bedrooms (so only covering current three children into teenagerdom). and maybe i wouldn't like living in truly the middle of nowhere. i like walking to school/shops.

[Owllady]

did any of you watch the big build last week?
for that reason alone I would say no

people go into these projects with the best intentions but anything could happen and I think getting your parents to sell and it still being a struggle anyway would be a no for me, it's just not sensible. If you could comfortably afford it by yourself i would say go for it but you can't and I think it's better to be realistic rather than emotional about this sort of thing

[Ilanthe]

I'm a planner with a specialism in conservation and I wouldn't touch it.

I think you'd struggle with permission for the barns - not sure there is a substantial enough structure there. Remember the barns will be 'curtilage listed' i.e listed by virtue of their association with the main building.

I also think glamping will be a no no - too isolated, visually intrusive and would affect setting of LB.

However, if you do want it there is much you could do internally. LBC is only required where works would affect the architectural or historic interest of the building. A new kitchen would be easy, provided you want to use the same space. That 'conservatory' could probably come down without a second thought.

However, you don't know what's underneath. If stripping back to install a new kitchen reveals some 18th c pargeting you're looking at retention in situ and a whole revision of ideas.

[EdgarAllanPond]

the thing is - current budget (raising mortgage on parents house and using cash left from our housesale & parents savings) = £325 (can be one house but with potential for two preferred)

future budget on mortgageable property = £550-600 (but must be two houses)

budget on non mortgageable house = £400k - £450 (after sale of mothers house)

so if this cost more than £75k to make mortgage-able we'd be very very screwed. and it really could cost more than that. I think the quick dropping of price of this place is very suspicious - if it failed to go at auction it may be there is too much wrong and wiser heads are saying no.

[kitsmummy]

3 acres and outbuildings for conversion just outside of Frome and £600k which is what yours would realistically end up costing you

[noddyholder]

Have you looked at others?

[sophiedaal]

Another thing to bear in mind with listed properties is that if the previous owners have started messing around without permission, you can end up liable for any non-approved work they've done, eg, if they put non-original tiles on the roof, or installed an Aga flue without LBC. You can repair elements of your listed house without consent, so long as it's 'like for like', but what's frustrating is that repairs that seem logical and historically consistent to you - eg, using tiles from the barn to repair the house, as presumably the original owners would have done quite happily - might not be allowed by the conservation officer, who would insist on the roof repaired with specific materials.

I have to admit that if it wasn't for the very experienced builder running this project I would have lost the plot months ago. As it is, I watch Grand Designs specifically for ridiculous builds that go over budget by £350,000 to cheer myself up.

[Ilanthe]

Can I also just be pedantic. With listed buildings the whole building is listed, inside and out, along with any curtilage structures erected before 1948, unless anything is specifically excluded from the list description.

That 70s kitchen is listed. However, ripping it out would not affect the architectural and historic interest of the building and therefore LBC is not required.

Unless your DH is very experienced in lime mortar don't let him repoint it. You will end up having to pay someone else to take it out and do it again. It's much more difficult than using cement.

[samuelwhiskers]

I think the Grade II listing would put me off and also that it is on the main Frome to Trowbridge road?

[ColdfeetPinksocks]

You'd be making you and your parents homeless. That means you wouldn't even have a plan B or C if it went wrong.

What if your husband got ill and wasn't able to complete the work?

What if your parents got ill and needed to be in an actual house?

Would you be able to sell it in a semi-converted state?

I'm not particularly risk averse, but my position is always that if we were on our uppers, we could always move in with the parents/in laws. I can't imagine jeopardising that (for us or for them) for a chance to live in a totally showy offy nice house.

[georgedawes]

it's not this house is it?!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Kent

[georgedawes]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Kent

[samuelwhiskers]

oh no, sorry, it is not, it is on the Bradford road, bit different than the A361.
Still wouldn't go for it tbh.

[LadyInDisguise]

No no and no!!!!

This house will be a nightmare just looking at it. I reckon you will have issues with the roof and dampness that will be hard to solve.
You want a separate house/building for your parents and you won't get that because of the listed building stuff.
And even if you did get planning permission, the outbuilding will need A LOT of work to make them habitable.

Serioulsy, it's a lovely house on paper, very attractive but you will sign yourself for years of hard work and nightmares and financial problem.
And it's not just you, it's your parents too.

Stay clear.

[IHeartKingThistle]

I think the fact that it would impact your parents makes it a no-no, sorry.

[GrendelsMum]

Just out of interest, what do people think's wrong with it?

It looks like the downstairs walls are damp, and I'm wondering why. The attic looks fine (well, obv needs replastering) so it's prob not the roof. Pointing gone? (Our house is mainly timber frame with a small amount of early brick, so I'm not good on brickwork.)

Don't know what others think, but I think the tiles are 'wrong' - they look too modern to me, and I'm wondering if they're possibly too heavy and might have caused bowing on the walls.

My sister is a conservation officer, and her standard advice is only to buy a listed building if you're happy to live in it as it is - i.e. fully repaired, but without any changes to the floorplan, etc.