Tell me why this would be a bad idea..

[GrumpyOldBagFace]

A farm on the outskirts of a village we'd like to buy in is selling off its farm cottages.

There's 5 of them in a row. They need work doing and modernising but they are very cheap compared to other properties in this area.

So what would be this problems with living in a farm cottage?

• no mains gas, we'd have to install oil central heating?

What else? Why is it so cheap?

Really? I've never seen an A property and I've looked at a lot. Check the full epc. You may well see things such as solar panels and a wind turbine. See how long they will take to pay off - I have a b rated property , the recommendation was to add a turbine which would take 200 years to pay off.

And as suspected - for sale as illegal to rent from April.

Does the farmer use the access road for tractors etc? if he does, “fixing it” might just mean chucking some hardcore down each summer. The tractors will still churn it up all the time.

Furry friends with tails.

That's what it says on their bumph but as you say, it's probably not achievable. It's just good to know the property isn't stuck as an F.

Yeah, the road might nacker the cars!

We rented in farm cottages before and apart from our own bastard cats being rodents in to the house, we didn't have any problems.

We rented on a farm having a break from antisocial neighbours. Was great. Half a mile down a dirt track but we did feel a bit checked up on by the farmer (renting as opposed to owning probably made the difference). Think about spraying and how bothered you are by it. Also people in the field with guns shooting rabbits at certain times of the year. Crow scarer canon things. And the farmer forgetting he's sold the house to you and being proprietorial. Making "suggestions".

We'd have bought the house we rented if he'd have been willing to sell it.

Re flying freeholds - our first house was a flying freehold, which we common in the area - hilly town with lots of old back to back mill cottages.

It was never mentioned when we bought it but when we sold it 10 years later it came up and our buyer did have an issue in that their mortgage lender wouldn't lend to them (they were getting a 100% mortgage, might not have been a problem if not for this), so they pulled out, but the sale to the next buyer went through fine, but we did buy an indemnity policy, which wasn't expensive in the great scheme of things (around £150-200 12 years ago on a property worth about £100k) so this might be an option - it protected our buyer if he had an issue with the flying freehold down the line.

Mains water and sewage or pump and septic tank? Any shared with the other cottages?
Parking, rights of way through garden?
Restrictive covenants?
Is the farm well run and organised or is it a dump (broken gates held together with twine and rusting machinery in odd places etc) and farmer is selling stuff off to raise capital quickly and saying anything to get a quick sale ( hence him saying he’ll maintain road but nothing in writing). Dodgy farmer that may take land-fill in the future for ready cash (one farmer told my DF he got twice the money from taking landfill rubble on his land than farming it!)

Most important - where does everyone keep their bins!

Is it resurrecting if the thread is only a couple of weeks old? Anyway...

Sewage is on the mains.

They've now said the road is the responsibility of the residents. 5 cottages + the farmer. They're planning to have it re-laid over the summer. I guess we would negotiate this into our offer??

It's a "mixed farm with cattle" if that means anything. I'm not worried about smell or farm noise etc.

It's a big job and we have two small children! It has such potential and we can't work out if we'd regret not taking this chance!!