House next door now for sale and its bad

[tooclosetooexchange]

Our chain/ ongoing buying saga has been a nightmare from start to finish.

We found a great house that we love and we're spending a lot of our savings to be able to afford it. This house was meant to be a relaxing family home while DD does her exams walking distance to her school, friends and our work. Currently we are 20-30 min school/ commute run.

Now, potentially a month away from completion, we have seen the house next door is up for sale. It is semi detached with all rooms having an attachment apart from the bathroom. We didn't know anything about the neighbour but the house seemed fine but having looked at the pictures.....

The house is a mess and is priced for a complete overhaul. No room is functional. We didn't realise it would be this bad.

This means that we would have potentially months of on going building work and disruption.

What would you do in this situation? We're pretty upset but want to think logically before we make any drastic decisions.

I should clarify we haven't exchanged! House next door is probate no chain.

I wouldn’t worry at all. Sometimes when things take a long time (you mention the process has been a nightmare) we start to try to over control and I think this is one of those times.
You just don’t ever know what your neighbours are planning and when. You could move anywhere and have the same thing. It’s not worth taking into consideration, just has to be filed under “anything could happen so why worry about it”
I assume you can’t afford detached so I would proceed with the sale. We’ve done our house, and both sides have done theirs and yes a pain at times but a very distant memory as soon as it’s finished. And far better to live next door to a house having work done then be attached to a mouldering ruin with all the damp/vermin/invasive plants/rot that involves.

Could be purchased by Council and turned into an HMO, depending where it.

Do you mean you are worried about the building work next door? I wouldn’t let it put you off. My elderly neighbours house was in a state of disrepair when we bought ours. Our neighbour eventually died and the house was empty for a couple of years so it was completely derelict. It’s since been bought and completely refurbished from top to bottom, they had to take the building right back to the brick it was in such a bad state. There has been some banging and noise you would associate with this, but nothing intolerable. At the end of the day im delighted I don’t live next door to a dump anymore and this will have a positive effect on the price of my own house.

I think you’re panicking a bit to much - unless you buy a detached house in its own 5acres of gardens, neighbours doing building works are a possibility wherever you are!

Better its an uninhabitable wreck that gets builders in and out in a few months than a do-er upper that they live in and take years of renovations I’d have thought.
Sounds like you’ve got pre-emptive buyers remorse! It’ll be fine, a bit noisy for a while maybe but if its perfect for you, worth a bit of inconvenience.

I’d pull out - if your daughter is at home trying to revise and the house next door is having significant work done it will be really hard for her to concentrate. You’ll also get lots of dust. Plus construction workers with their big trucks and equipment tend to start work early, they’ll probably wake you up in the mornings. If the goal of the move is to give your daughter a quiet easy life for the exam years then this house no longer fits the bill.

Tbh I wouldn’t move there for P&Q during an important time for your daughter. It’s horrible living next door to a building site. Don’t ask me why builders need loud radios and constant shouting, but they do.

I’d rather live next door to a newly refurbished house than an old wreck. Yes there may be a bit of noise going on but the end aesthetic benefits will surely be better?

I would be more happy than concerned. The house next to us (terrace) was grim. Awful landlord, some nice tenants, but started falling down and causing damp on our side. Garden was a dump. He sold to a developer and yes we had 6 months is disruption but my gid it was worth it. Developer sent us a fortnums hamper for our patience.

We've been here for 27 years and then 2 years ago the dump house next door went up for sale and the banging and drilling has been ongoing on and off for about 18 months.

You get used to it as you know it's not going to be forever and when it's finished it will look lovely.

Noise cancelling headphones can be your friend.

With neighbours you never know what you are going to get. I once rented this gorgeous flat with a lush garden and a month later a woman moved in next door with a yappy dog that would spend all day and all night barking. It was absolute hell. the moment my contract was up, I was out of there!

The house adjoining mine was bought after probate about three years ago and completely gutted. I WFH a fair bit. Most of the time it was fine - we could hear them but no big deal. The really noisy bits didn’t last long. You’ll be fine - good luck.

Builders generally knock off around 4pm, especially in winter, so it could work quite well as at least you're not going to have evening noise - by the time she gets home from school and wants to do homework they'll be packing up.

I’d have to see what the house next door looks like to determine whether works would be that disruptive tbh

If the deceased owners were still alive and living there, it would be a perpetual mess - with many hidden issues that could potentially impact on your own house. They may well just leave problems - lack of money or inability to cope/rationalise - and end up firefighting piecemeal problems as they suddenly became urgent.

By contrast, if a house is up for sale with a lot of work needing to be done to make it habitable (as opposed to a doer-upper), the only buyers who will probably be interested are those with the money, time and wherewithal to get on with it - and quickly. So short-term inconvenience, but unlikely to go on forever.

Don't worry about it. The next door house may not sell at all, or may be bought by someone who just wants to live it for a while without doing major work. If DD is unlucky enough to be revising during a big building project, you'll find a way to create a quiet space for her either in the home or elsewhere.
FWIW, in my last house neighbours on both sides had loft conversations and extensions while I was working from home as a therapist. It was a bad time but I got through it by moving around the house to avoid the worst of it, and by piling insulation materials in the room I was working to absorb the noise. Both the properties in question where in an excellent state when purchased, so this doesn't stop people deciding to work on them!

Will probably sell to a developer who will hammer through the renovations to get it back on the market

Have you thought about switching horses and buying that one instead? You could make your daughter’s room habitable very quickly, probably in a long weekend
And then finish the rest off for later today, but you might have a bargain there

I don’t think you can tell which houses will be having renovation work done really. You could choose somewhere else where next door looks ok.
We have just downsized and from the photos you wouldn’t think that much needed doing.
We are doing the kitchen and the bathroom soon. We always knew we would. The work will all be done over 2 to 3 weeks hopefully with minimum disruption to neighbours.
No guarantees any neighbour won’t be doing work or whether they would get trades in/ doing it themselves. A gamble wherever you choose.

Thanks everyone for your responses. Lots to think about.

Generally yes, we would be happier if the house next door looks better at the end.

Unlikely to be a HMO as its a 2 bedroom. You could rejig the ground floor to make the front room a bedroom. Is there a minimum bedroom requirement for HMO - we will check.

It is true that any neighbour circumstances could change and work could be done at any time. It is an advantage to be prepared. I think whats putting us off is this is currently happening to my SIL and the building works have caused a lot of disruption for her.

We definitely don't want to buy the house as the house we want to buy is already renovated to a high standard. We're not that brave as it really is a start from scratch project.

Appreciate everyones POV and the experiences you have shared.

It’s just part of life and at least if it is bad it is as someone said a better scenario as more likely to be a developer and they will want to knock it out quickly.

We bought a couple of years ago and the house did need a lot of work and is t actually quite finished. When we moved in next door was rented out but has been repossessed and sold at auction and I am hoping a developer has bought it so it gets sorted. We’re taking a wall out so cracking on with it so that hopefully that bulk of our noise and next door’s will be over quite quickly.

But there is a house over the road that came up for sale and sold since we bought and is having a huge extension. Lorry was delivering 6.30am last week.

Previous house we lived in a bungalow was demolished and a huge house was built, took a year before we could see anything above ground, had a pool in the basement and they had issues with that took ages.

It is luck of the draw and I am hoping whoever has bought next to me makes a good job which will help us if we sell in the future.

Could DD work in the library or somewhere else if it gets a bit noisy? My DD revised through building noise and seemed fine but I guess it depends on how much noise bothers your DD. I think my DD used noise cancelling headphones.

In terms of our DD, yes there is a local library and there's enough room so she can move around depending on where the noise is coming from at a particular time. I think we had hopes and dreams of a quiet life and everything finally falling into place for us. However, it would hopefully be short term and worst over before her coursework becomes too intense.

My worry would that it would be turned into a HMO

@swampwitch0 its a 2 bedroom house - possibly could make a third downstairs

I’m a HMO developer- 2 beds doesn’t mean no go for HMO, we often go into the loft etc. location will be a giveaway and list price of property - where are you based?