Auction - can this work? How?

[LoonyIdea]

Here’s the bare bones:

I’ve seen a house I love, and it’s up for auction on July 21st with an auction house.

It’s a G2 listed house with some land.

It was previously on with A normal agent and an offer was accepted at £500k but it didn’t complete as the buyer’s solicitor wasn’t happy with a building certificate related to the underpinning. The old agent revealed that they believe the reserve to be £500k.

It is owned by MAG (Manchester Airport Group) who bought it as a compulsory purchase as a part of the A development, which never happened. They sold a lot of their portfolio but kept some with land, and this has been rented since.

My position:

I bought my husband out of my house as a part of our divorce and I now have a mortgage of £195k. My house is very saleable, on a popular estate and worth about £700 on a good day, £670 on a bad one. (Based on 3 local agents)

It was recently valued at £631 for the purposes of the remortgage as that was the figure I’d agreed with my husband some time ago.

I can put my hand on about £20k cash and everything else is in pension and in this house.

I earn £40k, PAYE.

And I really want to buy this house! How can I make it happen?

I had thought I might ask the seller to accept an offer prior to auction but if it’s ordinary auction terms then that doesn’t help me - I need more time, as it’s a cash flow issue.

I’m willing to pay a bit more for it and would go to £520 which I don’t think they’ll get at auction. The guide price is £475.

The house is uniquely unattractive to other buyers - it’s hard up against the motorway the plot is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and the majority of the land at the back has no vehicular access at all. You can get a mower or a horse in and that’s it. And the house is a (properly underpinned) wreck. I however, love it and it would suit me perfectly.

im talking to some “we buy any house” sites and they’re talking about 75-90% of market value and could complete within a few weeks.

How should I proceed? Is this even possible?

They want the right buyer for it?
But they are selling at auction, literally no control over who buys it?
What a strange thing for him to say to you.

Yes, not entirely helpful.

More updates. Oh god calm me.

i spoke to the historic buildings surveyor and he is going to have a look at all my photos and videos and the legal pack and do a Zoom consultation. This is a lot cheaper than a full survey and he’s an expert and knows his remit is to help me decide whether to proceed or not.

Then, buoyed by a book I’m reading about Manifestation, I rang the auctioneer. My heart was beating so fast and I was gabbling I think but I explained how much I NEEED the house and how I might just be able to cobble together the deposit but I’d need more time to complete, and then I held my breath. And he said “yeah we can do that!” He was so nice and said the best way to bid was to do it via their office on the phone so that they can bid on my behalf and that way there is no chance of anything going wrong with my broadband or anything and he said he hoped I got it. I have to email him with my details and financial circumstances and they’ll attach it to my bid details. And that way they’re not changing the terms of the auction, just having a bit of flexibility.

And I told him I had spoken to the vendor and his comment about being a custodian and he said “how did you find him?” I laughed and said “I made it my business to find him, that’s how much I want this!”

So there’s the small matter of the deposit. With some jiggery pokery I can get to £52k I think.

Please all pray this comes off.

it might have been a mistake to let auctioneer know you are keen as they could push the price up at auctions you need to look as disinterested as possible

It might but that ship has sailed! Also I decided to emphasise that I’m a keen custodian who will make this happen, not a nonchalant developer. That’s why I need the special terms on completion. No one disinterested would buy such a weird complex property.

@LoonyIdea I've been reading your thread over the last days (home with covid) and your enthusiasm and genuine love for this building shines through your posts.
I truly hope you are successful in securing this property, you need it as much as it needs you

Well if you believe in signs and fate - you’ve got all of them!! I so do hope that you manage to get it. Fingers and toes are crossed.

Can't wait to hear what the surveyor says.

Sorry if I missed it but when is the auction? Really hoping you get the place 😁

Having a zoom call later with my listed buildings expert chartered surveyor contact. He’s had loads of video and photos. He doesn’t sound encouraging.

He said “From that video I think I can say with a degree of certainty that there is a modern cement based render and modern masonry paint to the elevations.
It may be over an older lime render.
Nonetheless, I would be concerned that it is concealing a ‘multitude of horrors’.”

<sad face>

I think it's on 21 July.

Ideally, the hammer will fall on OP's winning bid, whereupon she will hire a charabanc for all the random lurkers to come on a tour of the unattached front wall and the dovecot, not to mention the adjacent motorway, and we can all share in her good fortune while channelling our Grand Designs single raised eyebrow over the sheer ocean-going madness of it all.

Can't wait.

eek OP I hadn't seen your two updates when I posted my jaunty message above.

Well - it looks all the more likely that it will not sell at the auction and you should go in with a seriously low ball offer afterwards to reflect the amount of remedial work it will require. Your chat with the auctioneer might actually have been a good thing. They will be thinking they have a buyer nicely teed up and then when you don't appear it could be a bit of a marmalade dropper moment?

Presumably given the listing, a developer won't be able just to rip it down and start again. They won't be able to make the kind of margins they want from the building or the site if it's by the m-way. The MAG people must be running out of patience and just want to get it off their balance sheet. Finance directors hate decaying assets hanging about - better to take the hit. It's about plucking the goose with the least amount of hissing for them in the end.

I'd hold hard and think it's just not worth £500k to anyone in that state. And try to sneak in with a CF offer if it fails again to sell.

It is indeed a Loony idea, loonyidea

Evening all. Well, I had LOADS of video and photos and had sent them to my Listed Building chattered surveyor contact and we had our Zoom tonight.

TLDR, it is super knackered. Like, end of days bollocksed.

The longer version is:

The render is wrong. Wrongity wrong and whilst some jobs can be left until the time is right, this has to happen NOW, hair on fire urgent. Going rate is £750- £1k per m2. So best part of £100k for that - removal, address timber frame issue underneath, reinstate lathe and plaster on front section, recover in appropriate breathable lime mortar. Same on later rear section, they’ve covered the air bricks and that’s why there is mould in the kitchen even though it’s new. It’s all wrapped in a big plastic bag, in effect.

The roof looks alright, and the underpin such as there was, looks fine and certificates have appeared in the legal pack. However, the whole building should have been pinned, but they didn’t, the only did the back part, and that’s likely caused some “heave” which has made the floor between the old and the newer sections, buckle.

The sole plate looks like it’s moved on the front section and possibly needs pulling back in. The front part has subsided and that’s what’s caused the front elevation to pull forward.

There appear to have been works that have been signed off as finished when actually they’re only “practically” finished which is apparently a different thing. For example the oil tank for the heating isn’t plumbed in yet, it’s just plopped outside yet the works say that that has been done.

The sewage arrangements are fine though, there’s a new sewage treatment system.

Oh yeah he also said that the council where it is are really hard to deal with, bankrupt and there’s no conservation officer.

I had to go for a lie down.

Did your surveyor have even a guesstimate over the £100k how many more zeroes would have to be involved? Given the bonkers prices for builders and extra hassle of dealing with specialists for listed work and council officers?

Practically speaking, I guess you start counting down from the £500k until you hit somewhere that you think your patience and passion for the house and your finances might possibly meet, (£150-200k probs) write that down as an opening bid with everything the surveyor has said, stick it in an envelope, send it to MAG and then walk off. Don't go to the auction, don't get sucked into bridging loans and other nonsense.

See if they come back to you and if they don't, you know that a different loon with deeper pockets (if not passion) ended up with the headache instead.

so if you go to the toilet you could find yourself doing so in the ‘wild’ at any given moment in time, given the walls may come down like a pack of cards in a gentle
breeze……but at least the sewage system won’t be dealing with the neighbours fatberg!
On the plus side, your kitchen may well
be incubating the next miracle drug. That could pay for some vital repairs…..
Hmmmm.

…. Do you think there is a tv series or two in the rebuilding of this dilapidated grand old master? George Clarke as presenter perhaps?

<northeast accent>
”How one middle aged woman, driven by passion and nerdiness, managed to fuck up her entire financial health and that of generations to come.”

Cuts to me, sobbing in an earth closet.

I think that’s wise advice. I don’t know if I have it in me to live in a portacabin for a while until it’s done, at any price.

I think that could make a nice little earner. Followed by a series or two on the archaeological aspect with Tony Robinson and a roof raising series with Sarah Beeney on how the house must now start to earn over and above its keep with history tours, residential courses for architecture students and for fun, some pagan weddings and a couple of shepherds huts in a distant field surrounded by resident sheep mowing the grounds…
whilst in the background an ever change flow of WI ladies show the proper way to make porridge…

Money problems sorted!!

Seriously though, is it actually worth anything? Could it be bought for pennies? It doesn’t sound as if anyone can do anything with the property or land other than rebuild or wait for it to return to the earth. Then literally be a labour of love for someone?

I guess you haven't got a trust fund that you have omitted to mention? I'm glad you got such comprehensive advice.

I'm just jumping in to share a thought my partner has shared that may be helpful.....

I've been following this thread with enthusiasm as I also feel as you do about old houses and history, and I can totally see myself losing my head into a house like this ..... along with all my worldly goods!!!

In fact we did try to buy something similar a year ago, listed, conservation area, very old, such an exquisite example of how this property went for a tiny farm cottage (2 rooms) and was added to to be rather an imposing Victorian farm house with stables and out buildings that all could be restored.

The upshot is that the main part of the house was so bad, we decided that the reality of dealing with that particular parish council, never mind the listed aspects would probably bankrupt us, and also the stress could well end us. We debated putting a very low offer of a punt in and decided that actually even if we got the house for 20p we wouldn't ever be able to get to the point we could live there. I don't know what it eventually sold at... and nothing at all has been done on the site so far which backs up our theory that getting a tile stripped off the roof would be a life's work with the complicated list of hoops we would have to jump through.

I'm still sad about it. I still think THAT is the house I've waited my whole life for and that I would look after it. I would give my whole life over to restoration and loving it...... even while my children froze to death in their beds and starved as we fed the house every penny and then some!!

So to the point..... my partner said (this is presuming that it fails to sell at auction and you could buy it in a normal manner) who are the people that put this render on? Who signed it off? MAG? He would be investigating MAG making good the render/oil tank/underpinning or them providing an indemnity insurance that you could claim from during the course of negotiations.

They may well say no of course, there may well be someone prepared to offer £400k to your £500k but accept the works needed, in which case it won't work, BUT it is something to consider.