In retrospect, I knew that this one was a non-starter but I'm a sucker for houses needing thoughtful care and attention in the fear that they will be ruthlessly exploited and stripped of their character and features...it literally hurts!
So, against (my) better judgement, we set the ball rolling with this one. Again, we were back to a case of needing to sympathetically pull everything back to its bare bones and starting again. Our experience was such that we had a very clear idea of what the price should be....considering the market and the neglected state of the property and our offer, after some negotiation, was accepted. The dulcet tones of bells ringing and fireworks cracking alighting my mind's sky...not at all which was a bit worrying but, nonetheless, we proceeded to pursue this as our next family home.
I have to admit that I was finding it difficult to visualise the end product as, for example, the separate bathroom and toilet were hidden at the back of a half landing with hardly enough room for Button, our cat. I'd imagine that the bathroom and toilet fittings had seen better days about 30 years before. But the 5 bedrooms were huge and all had special features such as original cornicing and fireplaces...even the radiators worked but the floors were a bit wonky.
The garden was very large with mature trees and lush shrubs, thanks to the nieces from Weston, but still required some considerable landscaping.
Oh, forgot to mention that the kitchen was non-existent and consisted of an aluminuim sink with a cold tap, was painted bright orange and had a chintz style rag dressing the window!
At this stage, we had a new mortgage offer and alongside the general survey from the lender, Mike began muttering about potential drainage problems, underpinning and a whole host of other horrors. So we had a full structural survey at eyewatering cost to our ever depleting resources.
The report was not good and, to make matters worse, our lender asked us to spend yet more money on having a more sophisticated survey done with no guarantee that they would approve the loan following this type of spend.
We had no option but to lower our offer.
The estate agent was furious and the vendor's representatives were disgruntled to say the least and refused our latest offer.
Several months later, we were still smarting from this experience and felt very strongly that our last offer was totally fair. Indeed, we regularly clicked onto nethouseprices to view the eventual sale price.
VINDICATION!!! We were not too surprised to note that the eventual sale price was almost identical to our final offer.
Worse still, however, was the new owner's idea of property enhancement. One afternoon, long after we eventually purchased our house, I took a detour and drove down the road where this house was situated.
I was so shocked at the property's 'transformation'...the uPVC screamed out contaminating the soul of the building....even the brand new glass window panels looked plastic and artificial. The plants and shrubs in the front garden had long been suffocated with unnaturally coloured paving slabs, totally out of character for this beautiful house.
The property now sat awkwardly, embarrased and shamed, in its new modern outfit....the remnants of its glorious past and bespoke decoration and character, flung nonchalently into a roadside skip by those with money who know no better.
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