4 min read

Lydney Road - Assisted Sale

Updated: Jun 1, 2022

The Property

Lydney house is an end terrace, situated 5 minutes’ walk away from Southmead hospital and has easy access to the famous Gloucester Road with ample amenities in its surrounding area. The property is on a residential road, but is in close proximity to major large companies such as Airbus and the MoD. Therefore making it an amazing rental location for an investor and a great family starter home for anyone working in these sectors. The property is close to M4, M5 and M32 that leads into the centre.

The Plan:

The property was very unloved, so we wanted to make it a home again. Aside from the structural integrity of the property being restored, we wanted to change the layout of the kitchen to create a more user-friendly space, open up the fireplace so that it is more homely and make the garden an area for families to spend time in. We booked a survey on the property to ensure that we know all the issues we need to fix up in order to ensure the property becomes welcoming to another family again.

The Journey:

Lydney house was referred to us via a friend, hence it was sourced off market. The property was rented out for the past few years to a family but was not well looked after. The tenants had stopped paying their rent the moment covid restrictions were announced in the UK. The vendors are a retired couple, so without the rental income, they would not be able to pay the mortgage on the property and would be risking repossession from the bank. At that time, the lady owner of the house also suffered a stroke, which undoubtedly took over their time and attention. The house caused too much stress and so they went through the eviction process to rid of the tenants. Ten long months later, the tenants finally left.

Unfortunately, the struggle continues, the house was left in an inhabitable state…

Externally, the drains were blocked, driveway had overgrown weeds, roof tiles were a home to the local birds, garage was leaking, and the shed was filled with special plants! Internally, all floors were ruined, here were multiple holes in various locations of the ceiling, back windows were broken, and kitchen units were missing their doors and in very dirty, greasy condition.

The vendors reached out for help at this point and we were put in touch. Their plan was to sell this house in order to pay off their own home mortgage as the terms were coming to an end. With the house being in such state, they would not be able to achieve the figure they desire, so we proposed an assisted sale!

However, as the property required a full refurbishment, we agreed a price that vendors are happy with, and took over the project wholly through to marketing and sale. Throughout the refurbishment, the vendors was pretty much completely hands off, and I remember quite vividly that on the day we signed the contract, the owners expressed a sign of relief and said …

‘It’s your house now!’ as they handed the keys over to me. (As if it’s now all our problem!)

EMJA Group was rather excited as it was our first assisted sale project and we had to learn quite a bit on what legal terms were required to protect both ours and the vendor’s interest. All of which was disclosed to the vendors so that they are also onboard with what we plan to do.

The structural survey conducted was helpful in estimating cost. From that, we knew a rather large portion of the work would be external. The roof was filled with birds’ nests and did not have eaves tray or bird guards. Hence it was no surprise when we found leaks in the building. The drains were blocked, so we had a CCTV drain survey done.

‘’Turns out there was a table leg in the drain and the clay pipes had cracked!’’ What a lovely surprise! – NOT.

The boiler made a lot of noise when we tried the shower! Of course, we had the professionals in to check the boiler. Interestingly, the boiler ‘works’ and is certifiable with faults and it does not power the radiators. Funny eh? Well, I thought it would be best to make sure the boiler does actually heat up radiators in a home, so it was replaced!

8 weeks of grafting by tradesman and four large skips of rubbish later, the property was renewed. We managed to get the property back on its feet, looking beautiful as ever! Giving it a new photoshoot, along with its staging kit, the house went on the market taking out all its competition! Unsurprisingly, a lot of viewings were booked, packed together over 2 days, resulting in four offers, three were over the asking price!

Offer 1: Buy to Let investor – missed out on 4 properties so far - £10k over asking.

Offer 2: First time buyer – missed out on a property due to vendor drop out - £10k over asking.

Offer 3: Portfolio manager – away investor, not seen the property - £15k over asking.

Who would you choose?

This deal was the result of keeping an open mind and finding a way that works for everyone. Something that we often hear, but quite hard to do. It gives us huge satisfaction to know that we have helped the distressed owners regain their trust within people in property, whilst lifting a weight off their shoulders, and of course earn some money for ourselves!

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