The Lemon Fool

We are looking at purchasing a mixed Commercial/Residential building that is Listed Grade 2.

Anybody have any tips of what to look out for?

Yes, about 30 years' worth. (Three shops at street level, three flats above, of which one is leasehold and the others are owned by us.) The rental returns can be quite surprisingly high, but so are the maintenance and repair bills.

The devil's in the details. What's in the commercial part - offices, shops or food premises? What sort of state are basics like water, wiring and roof in? Who pays for repairs to windows, etc? Is there a maintenance scheme whereby each leasehold tenant pays a set amount into a fund each year? And how about the businesses? Are they on a fully-repairing leases? How long are those leases?

WRT repairs and maintenance, make sure you get some realistic costs, and then double them. We've just spent £7K on repairing six feet of curly elaborate 18th century stonework that had been hit by a lorry (which then cleared off, naturally). Grrrr. And when an internal wall needed painting, it had to be done in authentic lime distemper that took five months to dry. (Try getting the tenants to accept that!)

Then there's the weird stuff, Not even the water board knows where the water pipes enter our property, or which way the drains exit the building. It can be fascinating, as when we discovered Tudor bits in what we'd supposed was an 18th century building. But if you're not the hands-on sort, make allowance for elevated upkeep costs. Oh, and don't pay too much.

BJ

My experience is near identical to what BJ said. OK, it wasn't for as long - about 15 years. And it was a residential multi-unit building, although it had been commercial before that (an inn, specifically, and also a barracks in the Napoleonic War).

What made ours even more complicated was that it was also in a National Park. So to make changes we had to get the approval of both the building people (council) but the planning people (the National Park). And sometimes they would disagree with each other.

Also for our barn conversion we needed both planning consent and listed buildings consent, so twice the work for your architect/surveyor.

We were compelled to use certain kinds of materials, e.g. slate from a local quarry for the roof, not tiles, although they did relent and let us use synthetic slate that looked the same. No vinyl windows, naturally. The exterior paint colour had to be approved. And so on.

Let's just I'm glad I did it, I'm glad I sold it and I won't do it again.

Whatever you do, I think most of us old hands would agree on one thing. Never annoy the conservation officer or the Listed Buildings Inspector. They have almost no ultimate powers, but by golly, they can make your life difficult if they start insisting on the hard line approach.

Stuff that you probably regard as sensible (such as double-glazing your windows) will have them foaming at the mouth. And our leaseholder spent a fortune on having replica sash windows made (of wood, not plastic), only to have them rejected because the counterweight system (the bit that you never even see!) was a modern spring loaded system and not a lump of cast iron on the end of an asbestos rope, as they were traditionally designed. We spent some time thinking up new uses for a length of rope and a Listed Buildings Inspector.....

And yet the same people usually can't stop you from hanging a satellite dish on the front of your Grade 2 listed property. It's a bit of a jungle. So stay well in with the inspector.

Many thanks for the suggestions. We will certainly be walking around with our eyes open. Other areas that are bothering me are the Insurance arrangements and the risk of Chancel liability.

It is funny how windows keep cropping up as one of the most expensive items in a building....On this one probably 40 plus and from what I can see they all need work!

Thanks again.

I've had a certain amount of experience with grade 2 listed and can both support and disagree with some of the points below:

1. Who is the local officer is important. If they are a disaster zone then don't buy in their area. Whoever they are do your best to never meet them and never let them on the property if at all possible. Every time they come on or into your property you are giving them evidence and reason to return. At your cost and to their perpetual income & job security.

2. Most stuff is best to just get on with and do. Quietly, without making a fuss, and in keeping with the genuine character of the building. And without even mentioning it to neighbours if you can. The job that is done quick and blends in with things never gets queried.

3. Check carefully what is listed - exterior, interior, whatever. It makes a difference. One property I know is listed because of the windows. Which I happen to know came out of a skip in Bournemouth and were installed in the 1970s, and which are not the 14C original fittings that the listed buildings officer swears is the case. Did I say that many listed buildings officers don't know what they are talking about ....

4. If the property is close to public zones (street frontage etc) and/or nosy neighbours then be very cautious about taking it on. Too many people putting their hands into your pockets because they can.

5. But if the property is sufficiently secluded (which is likely not the case for you from what you say) then a thoughtful and pragmatic approach can go a long way provided you are prepared to do a certain amount yourself, and take a judicious risk/benefit approach. I've had a lot of fun and helped create some good outcomes like this.

6. As a result some architects and builders I know will refuse to work on listed buildings for fear of the inspector and their unreasonableness.

7. And by the way none of these issues are a concern to the council when they are tarting up their grade 2 buildings with double glazing, etc etc.

regards, dspp

dspp wrote:One property I know is listed because of the windows. Which I happen to know came out of a skip in Bournemouth and were installed in the 1970s, and which are not the 14C original fittings that the listed buildings officer swears is the case. Did I say that many listed buildings officers don't know what they are talking about ....

LOL, back in the 1980s we decided that my partner's Grade 2 18th century listed house would look more distinguished with a small wooden porch that just kept the rain off the front door. So we went off down to Homebase and got some timber and lead sheet surrogate, and in an afternoon we'd enhanced the house no end. We probably got an extra twenty grand on the eventual sale price because it looked that little bit more 'Jane Austen' than it used to.

Imagine our surprise, then, to find out much later that our porch was being listed as one of the charming 18th century features of the house. One day they'll be stripping it down to refurbish it and they'll find the Homebase barcodes on the timbers. Which will confuse them just a little bit.

BJ

Thanks for that! Having a healthy disregard for all things 'the state' should help with navigating this one.

Besides the huge bill for the windows!

dspp wrote:Check carefully what is listed - exterior, interior, whatever. It makes a difference. One property I know is listed because of the windows. Which I happen to know came out of a skip in Bournemouth and were installed in the 1970s, and which are not the 14C original fittings that the listed buildings officer swears is the case. Did I say that many listed buildings officers don't know what they are talking about

In our case the answer to that question was simple: "Everything within the curtilage of the property". The listed building officer told me that even if there was a 1960's asbestos extension built on using the crappiest materials, it was still listed because it was a part of the whole.

What that meant was that (in theory) you need permission to take it out and put it back to the way it was 250 years ago. But in practice they supported any change that was sympathetic to the era, in this case Georgian.

But oftentimes we would just do the work without permissions, like you said. After all, the officers really don't know what state the building was in beforehand anyway. They typically just accept everything "as is". And of course many of these permissions are really just opportunities to charge you fees.

dspp wrote:6. As a result some architects and builders I know will refuse to work on listed buildings for fear of the inspector and their unreasonableness.

IME in a mere Conservation Area, ie not even listed, architects can love to propose works that they certainly perhaps know have no chance of passing the required permissions, as it ensures a protracted and likely futile bun-fight [at £/hr fees] vs those 'totally unreasonable authorities'.