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)

[Crumbledwalnuts]

Listed buildings are a nightmare unless you've got bottomless pockets I reckon. Some planning officer can just basically come along and ruin your life and say - oh those windows have been changed since the listing and before you bought it, now you have to change them back to cobweb plaster lined with gold thread and you have to pay for it all and bad luck to you, it will cost you a gozillian pounds.

[EdgarAllanPond]

i think the Constance Kent house is now called house and this one is Flexham farm.

I admit 'no it's haunted' wasn't an expected answer!

[EdgarAllanPond]

sorry, langham house.

[PanicMode]

You've beaten me to it - I was going to say it's the same village as The Suspicions of Mr Whicher murder, but not the same house.

I wouldn't buy it - there's a reason it hasn't sold already - and I would imagine that it's because the current price is too high to allow people to renovate it and make it viable.....

It is a lovely part of the world, but for the money you will end spending on it to even get it vaguely habitable, you'll find something that's far less of a project.

[Bonsoir]

It needs serious money and an architect to make it nice.

[Ilanthe]

To be fair to planners, crumbled, they are merely enforcing the law. It is after all a criminal offence to carry out works to a listed building without consent and ignorance is no defence. It would be like criticising police officers for not charging for an offence of handling stolen goods.

And it is a property purchasers responsibility to establish all necessary consents have been sought, and if they haven't, either pull out, get the vendor to apply or adjust the price to reflect the cost of the works.

[EastwickWitch]

From past experience I'd say £300K plus your DHs labour.
Gorgeous house if you've got the funds though.
sophiedaal is talking sense. Our Grade II has to have all windows replaced & every decision has to be passed by Heritage. They even have to approve the staircase. Nothing can be rushed & we are struggling to make any savings.
Also, its been very expensive to find insurance to cover the property while building work is going on.

But, it is a great price & could probably by a million pound property at the end of it.

[Crumbledwalnuts]

Ilanthe - yes sure but it can happen, it's just a warning. There might be several sales, a couple of weak solicitors and wham, you're up the creek.

[EdgarAllanPond]

having pored over this at length whilst pie-eyed on cider

1. the attic room carpets look soaked - why? ingress from above?
   
2. water is coming through the gable walls, particularly on the west side.
   
3. the west side wall looks in need of work (though i know repointing shouldn't be expensive, the bricks look in part perished from the streetview - that wouldn't worry me if it weren't listed. but it is)
   
   also - 4) having been wet, is there rot?
   
4. wall ties?
   
   
   otherwise this is the usual change of kitchen, bathrooms, heating system, flooring jobby. together with barn conversion for my purposes.
   
   i don't think any of it would worry me chronicallyif it weren't listed, because at £325 we could afford for it not to have a second property on the land. Maybe that shows how optimistic i am!

[Pachacuti]

It looks as though it could be lovely, but you'd been utterly barking. If it didn't sell at auction then wiser and more experienced heads than yours have looked at it and decided it'll be too much money. And if you're already gngngn after eight months of sharing with your parents it doesn't look like the property for you, especially given that you might very well not get permission to convert the barn.

[Sahmof3]

You must be bloody bonkers to even be thinking about it. You can't really afford it and it isn't ideally suited to your needs. Don't waste any more time thinking about it. Sure there is something much better out there waiting for you.

[EdgarAllanPond]

" It is after all a criminal offence to carry out works to a listed building without consent"

EXACTLY THIS THAT WORRIES ME!

pretty much all of our previous work has been , at best, good quality bodging.,

window frames filled with ronseal and painted with white gloss.
broken lath & plaster replaced with plasterboard and swearing (lots of swearing)
cornice carefully shaped out of filler by me
stud frames put together by DH

that sort of thing. Not anything that has to be done properly, with specific materials, and by 'craftsmen' (rather than tradesmen). let's see if i can show the more sensible options...

[EdgarAllanPond]

this one is tempting

but 1)£50k over current budget
2) local school rubbish

mere 'historic' movement worries not me! the ceilings look ok and they wouldn't if it was falling down...

[EdgarAllanPond]

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-39448165.html?premiumA=true

this was a real prospect but 1)50k over current budget and
2)currently sold stc to someone else

i like timber frame as it is so easy to adapt and extend.

[EdgarAllanPond]

renovation project not listed and lower price tag

[EdgarAllanPond]

but that one pretty obviously has serious movement problems, and that can make selling on hard depending on cause...

search area currently: west sussex, hampshire, dorset, wiltshire....

[EdgarAllanPond]

this one was perfect, but went sold a week before we sold ours, so missed out

[ClaraOswald]

The one in Mylor states only suitable for cash buyer. I would run from that one.

[mummaemma]

well it definately doesnt look haunted. Its a massive project to take on. would look lovely finished. think its a bit over priced for its condition. but finished it'll be worth over £500,000. i can see why its very tempting. I love period properties but would be more inclined to buy a property thats not listed. if it was me i'd buy an older style detached, large garden, thats habitable straight away. looks like theres plenty in your area.

What about this nearby www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/28752922?search_identifier=f653bac4f31356411220a67e2fbe5102

[EdgarAllanPond]

£105k over budget

not listed though, and it had 1 acre paddock, lovely area

[noddyholder]

Bodging it won't do it!

[Crumbledwalnuts]

Why don't you buy a plot of land and build your own?

[Ilanthe]

Edgar, with the best will in the world what you describe as good quality bodging isn't good enough for a listed building which I think you realise. Plenty of people don't realise and that's when problems start. You need the right people as well. I live in a bog standard 30s semi and turned down one roofer who gave us a look when we said we wanted clay tiles (like for like) rather than concrete. Imagine that 100 times over as you try and find someone who works with lime, handmade bricks, etc etc etc.

That last one is a demolition and rebuild job. You'd only get 30% extra floor space granted, not enough for your needs I don't think, let alone any accommodation for your parents. Plus if the movement is due to underground shafts or something like that (probably not, looks like dodgy foundations to me) you'd never get your investment back.

[EdgarAllanPond]

clara the timber frame ones are cash buyer only too, however i do wonder with brick built houses where the line lies on that...

[EdgarAllanPond]

mumaemma that's a nice one >sends to DH<

though they've had a weird rising of optimism in upping the price by 25k, and have an uplift clause on the garden...