Buying a listed building?

[niceproblem]

We have seen a lovely house that seems perfect for us. It is well within budget, has been 'done' just enough for us to move straight in, but not so done that there's no scope for making some small changes according to our taste.

However, it's Grade II listed. I don't think there's anything structural that we would want to change but we would want to do things like get a new front door. I also don't know if buying a listed building has any implications for mortgage borrowing etc?

Do you live / have you lived in a listed building? Can you give me some idea of what to expect, pitfalls, positives? We really love the house but as FTBers don't want to take on anything insane!

Aaargh just don't!! This one is a complete money pit, the period charm has long worn off. Our biggest single problem is a massive damp issue caused by late eighteenth century 'improvements' on a substantially seventeenth century structure. These alterations are part of the street frontage and specifically referred to in the listing, so reinstating the original much more stable frontage is simply not allowed.

You'll need listed building consent to replace your front door. Repair is always preferred to replace.

What are the other works you want to do?

Even things like plastering- you need to use lime plaster instead of normal stuff.

You will pay more for insurance etc.

No other works except for cosmetic by which I mean removing carpets / some repainting etc. The front door is the only thing that obviously needs replacing (I realise that the word 'obviously' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there!)

We've got a grade 2 listed and it's completely fine.

As a PP said, repair rather than replace but that's what we would naturally do. We've repaired multiple windows without any bother at all, didn't need planning.

We're extending and obviously putting in a planning application. We're willing to be flexible to the conservation officer's concerns. It would seem there is usually some back and forth but unless you want to do something really daft (unauthorised ensuite, splitting a large room, modern tiles rather than heritage) it doesn't seem to have caused us any issues so far.

We do pay lots for very specialist insurance, partly as it's listed (rebuild cost was 150% of purchase price) but also as it's big and we have fancy stuff. Listing will add some cost to your insurance but not enormous amounts.

For us it's worth it to live in a beautiful old building in a lovely area

Ah that's good, this is a small-ish house and we don't have any fancy stuff

I've just seen that repairs etc that need Listed Buildings Consent are VAT exempt?

I absolutely love it and would be prepared to pay more for things like insurance. However DH is going to need some persuading - all the colour drained from his face when he realised it was listed...

I think it depends on just how listed it is look up the listing & the details on the heritage website. My house is G2 listed, it’s fine. It’s an expensive house because it’s an old house & we can’t put PVC windows in everywhere, but we wouldn’t want to anyway.

Got a grade II property as a FTB and I don't regret it, it did need a lot of work and we def bit off more than we could chew. I would get one without as much work in a heartbeat.

I think you just have to be very considerate with everything you do, always check first. We found dealing with the council and listed buildings department fine in our area, just took a while.

But you can get caught out, for example we needed roof work, it had to be done traditionally using lead and that cost over double your modern equivalent process and was a nightmare to find a traditional workman. We even had a guy claim he used lead but then admitted he would use the modern stuff as "noone could see it". We were restricted on what door colour paint we could use. And we weren't allowed to clean our brickwork. Little things like that, you wouldn't even consider asking permission for on a modern build.

It's a labour of love, if you want to bodge things on the cheap and aren't interested in the history then I wouldn't bother. So many people butcher them.

We would definitely not want to bodge stuff; part of the attraction is the beauty and history of the house (it even has a blue plaque!) and we would be totally respectful of that.

The heritage listing website just mentions parts of the facade, the second floor windows, the railings etc but I assume that the whole building is listed regardless?

God, never again!

We had to jump through insane hoops to replace our windows and front door. It would have cost about £4K using normal materials, but we had to replace like for like and it cost £12k.

It's not like you get that money back either really when you sell.

I don't think there is any vat relief for listed building repairs any more. Although it would be great if I am wrong!

Whole building is listed and once you own it, you are liable for putting right any damage caused by previous owners. The period property forum is a good place to read up on background info and get tips for repairs

Ours is 400 years old and Grade ll listed. Our front door is described in the listing and would be impossible to replace as the aperture isn’t straight!

We haven’t had any problems because of the listing, all ours were because of the previous owners’ dodgy diy - an electric cable joined with duct tape on a 1610 beam being the most notable example!

@Geneticsbunny

Whole building is listed and once you own it, you are liable for putting right any damage caused by previous owners. The period property forum is a good place to read up on background info and get tips for repairs

Yup! Some of the bodge jobs we've inherited are truly petrifying. I think we've tracked down and solved the worst of the electrical ones.

Get it

Out of interest, who do other listed home owners recommend for buildings insurance? Thanks

What it means , in practice, to own a listed building, ( and want to alter or even just maintain it) depends on 3 things:

1. what grade of listing- Grade 2, could be okay, Grade 2*, or Grade 1, unless your pockets are almost infinitely deep, steer clear.
2. Whether your grade 2 listed property is one of v few in the area, or one amongst many: if the latter, chances are better that the conservation officer may be relatively relaxed about it.
3. The views, idiosyncrasies, and strictness of the particular conservation officer you have to deal with. Laissez-faire or a stickler, their word goes, and you need to befriend them. Seek local info from other listed buidings owners nearby.

They have a huge amount of power, and differing views .If Building Control says something is required, and your Conservation Officer says "No", it is literally your problem to resolve the opposing views.

Just knock on the doors of other listed buildings nearby, you'll get a feel for the local situation.

@Neighneigh

Out of interest, who do other listed home owners recommend for buildings insurance? Thanks

We went with Home Protect, but never had to claim.

We had to replace the roof on our Grade II listed home and it was eye watering. I’m glad we went on to sell it, although it was spectacular and I miss the design features.

@Neighneigh

Out of interest, who do other listed home owners recommend for buildings insurance? Thanks

We're with Lloyd Whyte Heritage - originally used White Horse but became hugely expensive. We're thatched as well as listed so have even more hoops to jump through.

Re listing - yes there are things we can't do to our house - but tbh we wouldn't want to change it anyway. We've been here fir 20 years and it wouldn't put me off buying listed again. It's a privilege to live in such a special house; we're very lucky.

Good luck.

We have a grade II thatched house and love it.

You need to love it as it is, if you want a house you can change its not the right house for you.

They can take longer to sell so if you are looking for a good investment / might need to sell quickly I would avoid.

If you want a house with character and to help preserve history they are excellent. But there can be a lot of rules with no-one to explain them (at least in our area, conservation officer rarely replies) and when you do apply if its like for like its about a month, any change - including putting back to original from bodge - can cause lots of delays on permission. We put our chimney back from bodge to tudor and took 8 months and 1 complaint to get permission. But permission is valid for 2 years so basically just apply before you need it. It includes inside and outside and we are also in a conservation area so ours includes trees due to conservation area - so we want to get a tree pruned we have to apply get permission which takes around a month and is free to apply. Our planning for chimney was £400 but listed buildings consent is free. Advice from the conservation officer here is £300 but I believe that can cover multiple things.

Insurance was very difficult to get for us though the issue was thatched more than listed and we could only find Lloyd Whyte that would insure us. Ours was originally around £600 but in 2 years has risen to £1000 with no claims and we are really at their mercy as no-one else will insure.

When we bought our sellers did a gas and an electrical safety check and they are worth getting for listed buildings especially thatch. I would say its useful to have savings as well having said that it was our thatch which has caused the large expenditure, the chimney wasn't too bad. There is a listed property owners club and thatched owners club, we haven't joined but they are supposed to be good. I think they may offer insurance as well.

After we had arranged insurance we found out our predecessors here used to insure via Gallaghers but no experience of them and never tried them for a quote.

Get a surveyor who knows the area (and local council) and is experienced/specialist in listed buildings. We ended up being gazumped on a grade II listed building, so were quite far down the process and had done our research (and spent the money) The specialist surveyor was worth his weight in gold. From what we found out:

• it very much depends on each specific building and its historical relevance and location that is more important in what you can do to it
• each local council has different opinions and differing strictness (is that a word?) on the different alterations you can do depending on the significance of the building
• windows and front doors were the bigger hurdles in the house we were going to purchase - the windows desperately needed replacing and had a horrid metal inner window to try and add some sort of double glazing in the 90s - looked horrendous and needed sorting - that would have been the biggest expense and would have had to have been pretty much hand made by a specialist
• other than that, we wouldn't have done any big alterations outside and as long as we left original beams in place, and the walls on the outside of the house and garden, it wouldn't have been much different to a non listed house (e.g. kitchen needed replacing and we could do whatever we wanted to space as long as beam in ceiling was left, upstairs we could have knocked walls down as all original configuration had been changed along the years anyway).

We get insurance with NFU (grade II thatched) - they have been great. It also means we can then get car insurance (rated as one of the best) and holiday insurance.

Agree with PP who said it depends on your conservation officer. We have had a mix of attitudes over the years.
Being listed only an issue when wanting to repair or make changes or extend... we did hire an experienced advisor last time before submitting plans.
the listing curtilage might mean garden comes under their control too.....

We recently sold a grade 2 listed thatched property in a conservation area. We brought it from someone as a second home and I think we underestimated how much money even simply things can cost.
Things to take into consideration-
There are not that many skilled traditional tradesmen and can be costly.
You will need to apply for LBC for almost anything and this will add another 8-12 weeks. We found the listed building officers helpful abs sensible but every house in all 3 villages in the valley are listed so they have to be.

• pretty much every listed property will have some element of damp they were designed to have constant heat, draughts and breathable materials to avoid this. Now houses are sealed and often 70/80s renovations have used less traditional materials.

In summer they are amazing, but come winter we spent a lot of time wiping condensation and burning huge amounts of oil and logs to keep even marginally warm.

We did love ours once we finished the work and we’re lucky to sell within 2 weeks but at the end of the day we did not have the time, energy or money for the constant maintaince extra insurance and running costs.

Join the Listed Building owners group on Facebook.
We are currently buying one in need of repair. But we can do 95% of the work ourselves once you have to pay its not cheap as many things are so called "Specialist Jobs".
The comment above is very true about heating, wear a coat, these houses have been designed for people who wore a Vest shirt jumper and jacket inside. Materials, look out of the window, when many of these have been built they used local stuff so UPVC, modern Mortar, Paints etc are out.
You have to accept anything you want to do ideally you should talk to the Local Planning who will assist
Be vary weary of Self appointed Specialists as plenty about giving poor advice.
This bloke is well respected and has several You Tube videos about Damp
www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/all-about-the-pca/property-care-association-rising-damp-and-facebook.html