Owning your own home

Mates an architect in Croydon - recently set up solo. He did is a favour for our terrace and it’s great - happy to DM his deets if you’re interested?

yes please! that would be awesome

Grade 2 listed is tricky if you intend to modernise. Depending on condition, the planners aim will be to keep original features, or get you to restore it to its former "glory".

Obviously, very often, occupiers will modernise it without permission, so you can very inherit non-signed off things and that can become complicated. My partner's (architect) firm moved into a central london listed property and they can pretty much do nothing to it.

@andyp @nankatsu @Glws

Thanks all. Good to know it's not a blanket "run a mile!".
The place wouldn't need anything structural as it's a good space, but am looking into things like windows, roof etc.

Obviously it depends on the place, but it sort of is a "run half a mile" from me. unless a restoration project is really your thing.
Grade 2 covers much more than structural aspects.

The place appears to be in good shape, so worth a proper viewing I think. It doesn’t appear to be a restoration project. I will do some reading up though. Thanks

My house is in a conservation area as a property of architectural significance- that’s quite a pita. Grade II is a whole different ball game

And the buyer pulls out, this after we were arranging to get the boiler serviced for her next week!? lots of excuses in the email from her which i didn’t bother forwarding to the Mrs as it would just piss her off even more.

She told the agent “I was thinking of pulling out weeks ago”. FFS.

flat back on the market today, viewings booked already.
Broker said it was mental out there at the moment and not to worry, it did go under offer in first week of listing back in November so fingers crossed.
and i hope our sellers doesn’t freak when i tell them later.

I feel this situation is just something you have to endure as from reading the posts in this thread nobody is immune to it.

Have you looked at the entry in the list for the property? Is it in a conservation area as well? That would give a better indication of what might be allowed.

hard enough renovating a property without adding administrative and qualitative complexities imo

As said just below grade 2 requires far greater resources - time and money - to get things drawn-up, eventually approved and built to the right specs.

Or bleach the bricks or used car oil

Jesus, that's awful. Early onset "buyer's remorse"?

Yes, I had a look at the listing and there was very little detail. I’ll check the area too, thanks

The counterpoint is my folks did it. there was lots of back and forth with planners, but they were able to significantly extend a grade II listed cottage and are now beyond happy with their house. It's doable.

This. It can be very dependent on your local conservation officer as well.
The absurdity of the bureaucracy means that my neighbour needs to apply for planning permission, and listed building consent to replace grim aluminium window frames, because they were present when property was listed!:

Assume a starting point of 'no' to what you are wanting to do and be prepared to throw money at it. Also get used to leaky single glazing and uninsulated walls (assuming they are both still in original condition) because local authority/heritage offer depending it is unlikely that you can massively change these.

As @owl post, you can make alterations to listed properties but everything needs to be fully justified and respectful of the listed setting. It's all just a little but more expensive, a little bit slower, and with more compromises.

Grade II or II*? As there are differences. We're in a town with an incredible number of listed buildings (and I wanted to buy one! but we didn't move fast enough)*. Lots of people still manage to do interesting things to them, but as others have mentioned it's a bit more involved.

Someone up the road is looking to do a bit of reconfiguring and the planning proposal includes quite detailed historical records and arguments as to the what and the why, but it has been approved. The plus side is there are a lot of trades here that make their living working on historic buildings, so even if the permissions end up being quite restrictive it isn't as challenging as you would expect to jump through the hoops. Just a bit spendy.

* the new owner of this property has planning in for a loft conversion and some heavily glazed ground floor rearranging which has received general support although some of the window positioning and style has got the conservation officer's back up a bit. There is a neighbouring property that's got a load of glass and been done quite sensitively though so they'll likely get away with it after a bit of to and fro.

That place is lovely.

This one is grade ll, but the location is a bit of a compromise, so probably not worth the additional headaches and costs. Shame though

Share the link, and we can pick it apart for you 🤣

Not sure about ‘early’ as I was there when she came for a visit with her father to measure up and they were very enthusiastic about the place, there was a couple of not insurmountable issues, one a sideUPVc window with no fensa cert (it predates it anyway) and we were going to indemnify insure that.
the 3 flat management LtCo had some changes where flat 1 owner dies and it’s in probate, (we met the 2 daughters and it’s been cleared cleaned ready for sale) new owner of flat 2 who we met and is now down as a director.
she said “answers to pertinent questions from our solicitor” and “ the changes in the management company” as things that influenced her decision to pull out.

think she’s in for a bit of a surprise with wherever she ends up next as there’s always small things like this but in our case there was no huge elephant in the room or the front of the building about to fall off, there was no issue with having the 3 owners manage the building, the only upcoming thing was the possibility of fitting a wired/wireless fire alarm in the communal hallway in the near future.
She asked about asbestos, it’s a georgian town house with lath/plaster/later stud work and no artex.
TBH i think most of this comes from her conveyancer rather than someone who knows about property.

done with the analysis, 2 viewing booked this evening and it’s not even on rightmove yet.
onwards and upwards.

After seeing the one @6pt posted the one I spotted looks a bit sad. We are struggling to find anywhere at the moment in the two places we’re looking, so jumping on anything vaguely interesting.

would you be able to kick any updates to your vendor down the road until you've had a couple of viewing and potentially offers? Could prevent any undue panic on their part if you have a kind of bad news/good news thing

She asked about asbestos, it’s a georgian town house with lath/plaster/later stud work and no artex. TBH i think most of this comes from her conveyancer rather than someone who knows about property

Agree. If she was a property expert, she'd be asking about horse hair and anthrax!

And you're right - the items she's worried about are very small beer in the land of shared freeholds.

Onwards and upwards.

Here it is though

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121375544