Would you buy part of an old Victorian house?

[notborntothemanor]

Posted this in AIBU and got good feedback, now posting here in property to see what people involved in buy-sell-hell think.

So after 3 yrs of looking we have found one of those big Victorian country houses now divided into three individual houses, so like 3 terraced houses. In Yorks, not too far from where we are currently. Each house is responsible for its own exterior upkeep like walls, roof, drainpipes, chimneys etc. Shared drive and septic shared with one other property. Garden divided into three. No management company or joint agreements.

Issues: properties like this around here seem to sit on the market for a long time, get rented when they don't sell etc. I wondered why, and what sort of problems people foresee with places that like this.

From AIBU I learned to look out for things like neighbours issues, sharing responsibility for drive and septic, their roofs/issues impacting this property, potential noise, as well as damp, heating costs, paying detached prices for terraced house (but getting more space, lovely high ceilings/period details) more garden, and pleasant if a bit decaying grandeur, views, none of which we could afford if we go detached).

Anything I am missing? We would not want/need to sell, so this would be a forever house... unless one of the neighbours decided to build something horrendous in the garden or start an AirBNB or something... Is that likely?

We live in half of what was originally one Edwardian house. It was extended and then split years after it was built. We have the majority of the original house - living room, hall, staircase, etc. We own but share the drive with our NDN.

We love it - the place is unique, in a beautiful setting. There is a fabulous garden and no light pollution at night because we are set up and back from the road.

Haven't done it but sounds like my dream house... providing it's been done well and you get a nice house that doesn't feel like you have the back kitchen and the others have the main living areas!

Thanks so much for your replies.

wowfudge: Could I ask you how you deal with things like repair and maintenance to the roof? Is it shared with the NDNs? Are you on mains sewage? Have there been any issues you've faced? My other thread, on AIBU has resulted in most people saying they wouldn't buy something like this...

Other thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2908829-AIBU-to-think-theres-nothing-wrong-with-buying-part-of-an-old-country-house

Hi OP. For us, it's just a semi-detached house. We are responsible for the roof, rainwater goods, etc on our side and our neighbours are responsible for theirs. We share maintenance costs for the drive - it is in the title documents.

We are connected to all services. There are separate gas supplies, but we could turn next door's water off in our cellar if we wanted to! We can't have water meters due to that.

I think you do need to be mindful that sharing some things means you need to be on good terms. Some past owners fell out and put fences up, etc. These have since been removed.

The shared drive and septic tank would put me off. These work fine when sharing costs between reasonable people, but one unreasonable neighbour makes life unpleasant. Unfortunately I have had experiences with the unreasonable type of neighbour. I also wouldn't want to live in a terraced house again, no matter how pleasant - to be detached is more important to me.

We looked at a couple of houses that had been divided like this, some of them very well done indeed, but the maintenance, heating and upkeep costs were also off putting and any renovations would have been more expensive too.