Moving house after 19 years

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Andy665

Original Poster:

3,803 posts

235 months

Monday 30th September
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After being in our current home for 19 years we decided to look around and see what if there was anything we would consider.

Over time priorities change and we all (wife and 16 year old son) decided we wanted to go more rural and have more space if possible.

Having 5 cars meant that parking was a big consideration, single / double garage perfect, or car port with workshop workable

After being mortgage free for a time I was initially reluctant to go back to one but quickly realised that getting something that we saw as a better, rather than different house, it was going to be needed - caveat was that it had to be no more than 10 years.

How things have changed, estate agents reluctant to do viewings outside of normal working hours, so much more paperwork and a real sense of apathy in seeing anything get progressed.

A few false starts, right house, wrong location, right house but too expensive, great location but wrong house etc etc - I was pretty relaxed about it all, working on the basis I am not unhappy where we are so if the right everything cropped up then we would move.

Our house sold for a decent price and reasonably quickly, short and solid chain, initially we plumped for a house that kind of ticked enough boxes but little more, as we got further down the process we decided it was not right for us and withdrew, if we could find a house then great, if not we would take ours off the market and revisit things in 2025.

We had seen a house online that some reason we kept ignoring, possibly because it looked too cheap to fit the bill and secondly because I could not get the images to marry up to the floorplan, I was not going to view a house that I was struggling to relate to.

OH worked out the photos and booked a viewing, as soon as we walked in we knew it was perfect for us - an old farmhouse that had been completely refurbished, lots of before and after photos, the space we wanted / needed and at a price a fair bit less than many of the other houses we had been looking at.

No house is perfect and this place is on an A road, but its an A road in mid wales and really not that busy at all - viewed twice now at different times and its 15-20 cars / vans per 30 mins so entirely livable with.

Beauty of this part of the country is that sub 300k gets you a house with double carport, two workshops, home office, 4 double bedrooms (2 ensuite), 2 receptions, boot room, utility room and parking for 6 cars

bennno

12,708 posts

276 months

Monday 30th September
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mid wales is a pretty broad area, which part?

outnumbered

4,377 posts

241 months

Monday 30th September
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Andy665 said:
No house is perfect and this place is on an A road, but its an A road in mid wales and really not that busy at all - viewed twice now at different times and its 15-20 cars / vans per 30 mins so entirely livable with.
An A road in mid-wales would have me thinking about motorcycle noise, if that's the sort of thing that might bother you.

Andy665

Original Poster:

3,803 posts

235 months

Monday 30th September
quotequote all
bennno said:
mid wales is a pretty broad area, which part?
Sarn - its in Powys, 6 miles from Newtown with a college for our son and reasonable facilities and 25 miles from my OHs office in Shrewsbury (likely moving to a combination of drive / train and WFH)

outnumbered said:
Andy665 said:
No house is perfect and this place is on an A road, but its an A road in mid wales and really not that busy at all - viewed twice now at different times and its 15-20 cars / vans per 30 mins so entirely livable with.
An A road in mid-wales would have me thinking about motorcycle noise, if that's the sort of thing that might bother you.
Not really, its a good drivers / bikers road but have driven it plenty of times on days out for the last few years and its definitely one of the quieter roads

Huzzah

27,513 posts

190 months

Monday 30th September
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When we were looking the floor plan was the very 1st thing I'd click on. Wife more interested in decor.

worsy

5,947 posts

182 months

Monday 30th September
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Looks cracking and that road will be 20mph through the village. Not far from the pub too (but not too close!)

JQ

6,034 posts

186 months

Monday 30th September
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Looks great. As you say, that's an awful lot of property for less than £300k. And a pub within walking distance.

I presume the property had the land that is now being developed to the side and the owners have built the house at the rear for themselves with the proceeds. The only thing I'd want to be certain of is access - is the access to your parking via your neighbours land over which you have a right of way, or do you own the land and they have a right of way? I'm not a fan of shared access as it can cause headaches but in circumstances such as this it's probably very difficult to avoid. I'd make sure your solicitor has ensured the right of way is clear and no parties can block access or cause issues. And who is responsible for maintenance, how are the costs split?


Andy665

Original Poster:

3,803 posts

235 months

Monday 30th September
quotequote all
JQ said:
Looks great. As you say, that's an awful lot of property for less than £300k. And a pub within walking distance.

I presume the property had the land that is now being developed to the side and the owners have built the house at the rear for themselves with the proceeds. The only thing I'd want to be certain of is access - is the access to your parking via your neighbours land over which you have a right of way, or do you own the land and they have a right of way? I'm not a fan of shared access as it can cause headaches but in circumstances such as this it's probably very difficult to avoid. I'd make sure your solicitor has ensured the right of way is clear and no parties can block access or cause issues. And who is responsible for maintenance, how are the costs split?
Land to the rear was sold and built on a few years ago, solicitor is checking on who owns the land for access, our belief is that it is ours that new property has access over - not really that fussed either way but obviously we need to know.

Land to the side was sold and has been built on but access to those properties is completely different which is good. The boundary wall is actually the back of our property but there may be an opportunity to buy a strip (8ft wide ideally) from the people who own it, Developer had submitted plans that included a property but it was dismissed so owner of one of the new houses that he did get permission for has bought it, we believe so that it cannot be built upon in future - we only want a section and its for access to the rear of our property (no doors there, just do not fancy our house wall being the boundary)

JQ

6,034 posts

186 months

Monday 30th September
quotequote all
Andy665 said:
Land to the rear was sold and built on a few years ago, solicitor is checking on who owns the land for access, our belief is that it is ours that new property has access over - not really that fussed either way but obviously we need to know.
Definitely better that way round, but so long as the rights are clear and enforceable, which i would hope they would be as it looks likes the plots were only recently split, all should be good. RoW's from 100's of years ago are much less clear and more likely to cause more headaches. Although sounds like you're already on top of it anyway.

Hope that the move goes well and you're really happy there. We're in a city and moving somewhere rural once the kids have flown the nest is definitely on our radar.