Those country house conversions

[Four Cofffee]

You know the ones, where they take a big country house and make half a dozen smaller houes, like this:


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prope...


I have looked at a few lately and they seem to offer good VFM, so I have started to tot up the pro's and cons. So tell me what is good and bad?

Pros:

Usually a great location and grounds/facilities you can use without mowing the lawns or paying for tennis courts or swimming pools you use rarely.
Council tax is reasonable, usually a band D, E or F maximum whereas a house of that size is normally G or H.
No gardening if you have one with just communlalgrounds.
You tend to get fewer, but larger rooms which makes them more attractive to semi-retired people , which to me means few kids and teenagers
Often have some private garden if you want some privacy


Cons:
Service sharge for the grounds can be high. I have seen them at £2k a year , but most are about £1K . Not much control over rises if they are a private mgt company.
Designated parking spaces and garaging, limiting you to 2 cars usually
Having shared grounds is Ok unless you get a knob jockey neighbour who has his drunken mates around every weekend for a BBQ ( I am guessing there are 'rules' about how you can use the communal grounds?)
The management company is often run by residents: a recipe for conflict and little Hitlers.

[Laurel Green]

Big old houses/mansions can throw up the occasional and, sometimes not so occasional, hefty bills for maintenance. Think, dry-rot in the belfry, etc.

[Four Cofffee]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yeah I see some are marketed as 'LUAL'.

I have just had the company accounts out for the management company of one I am looking at. They take in £4k a year and make about £700 profit but that is one where the charge only pays the gardening, there is no maintenace, gym, pool, shared garage block to maintain etc.

Do most allow dogs?

[Targarama]

We owned a flat in a lovely Georgian manor house. Only 6 flats in the building. Lovely. Until the maintenance bill arrived. Not cheap!

One good thing about those kind of places is that they don't attract chavvy neighbours or people with young children.

[Four Cofffee]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I guess so but most people probably value their quiet, warm summer weekends but weekdays could work.

Looking at the accounts of the one I was looking at the secretary was an engineer and the CEO was a solicitor. All of the other 8 share holders are couples.

[andye30m3]

I'd have to look closely at the quality on the conversion as otherwise I'd expect noise transfer could be an issue, Not something I'd be happy about in a £700k house.

I've done a few conversions on similar houses and particularly where the buildings are listed the building control requirements for noise can be reduced if the conservation officer feels it's going to damage anything worth keeping. More likely to be an issue if parts of one house are over that of another.

[Beardy10]

andye30m3 said:

I'd have to look closely at the quality on the conversion as otherwise I'd expect noise transfer could be an issue, Not something I'd be happy about in a £700k house.

I've done a few conversions on similar houses and particularly where the buildings are listed the building control requirements for noise can be reduced if the conservation officer feels it's going to damage anything worth keeping. More likely to be an issue if parts of one house are over that of another.

Very good point....I can tell you from personal experience that the current building standards are not too a very high standard for noise transfer (before they get relaxed because of the conservation officer).

The one off general works bills could easily be tens of thousands. I dread to think what the scaffolding alone would cost for doing external works!

[Tuna]

I get the impression that quite a few of these are one step short of the retirement home for well to do middle classes. If you're an empty nester who does big holidays, it'd be great.