The Parbold Hall Estate, Parbold, Lancashire is a 9 bedroom country house with 865 acres of land.
It’s a magnificent building set in amazing countryside. They do want £9,500,000 for it. It is Grade II* Listed.
The house overlooks the Douglas Valley. The location is amazing.
Keys to your new house
You’ve got the keys to your new house so what should you do?
Read the meters (You should do this at the place you’re leaving too!) – use a digital camera to get a photo of the meter readings in case of any dispute)
Change the locks. Most people don’t bother but you should really put new barrels in. It’s not complicated and can give you complete peace of mind. There’s millions of keys that get lent to people (Family, cat sitters, even workmen! that don’t get returned.. so avoid any potential problems by just changing the locks)
Get low energy lightbulbs for every room. Buy a bag full in advance. The sellers might leave all their lightbulbs or they might take them all. It’s better to have a few spare bulbs than be in the dark.
Fit a carbon monoxide detector too. They’re about £14 from Amazon and could save your life!
Check the smoke alarms.
Your local fire brigade will come and fit you shiny new ones for free – find their number online or in the yellow pages – Do not ring the 999 number for them!
Jennet Tree Lane, Callow End
This beautiful house – Kents Green Court – is on Jennet Tree Lane, in Callow End
7 bedrooms
6 reception rooms
6 bathrooms
Outbuildings
Detached
Equestrian
Garden
Land
Secondary accommodation
Stabling
The views of the Malvern Hills are quite amazing.
The guide price is £2,500,000.
Ancillary accommodation is located within the grounds in the form of The Cottage, which is attached to the main house and the Garden Flat, which lies next to the stable block to the side of the house, both comprising a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and sitting room.
The indoor swimming pool can be accessed directly from the house and there is an additional staircase which gives access from the first floor down to the swimming pool without having to walk through the house.
Change to French CGT rules on second homes
“You must have owned the house for at least five years and you can’t have owned a ‘principal residence’ for at least two years.
French Parliament has just passed an important amendment that says that the sale of second homes will be exempt from CGT when the seller does not own a principal residence. Article on fly2let
Combined heat and power at Graylingwell Park
Combined heat and power at Graylingwell Park
Interesting article detailing the combined heat and power system at this new build development in Chichester
The system is alarmed so if there’s a fault it’s reported quickly. This is important – there are existing centralised boiler systems which rely on residents reporting the lack of hot water or heating before boilers are inspected.
The system uses highly insulated underground pipes to get around the estate. It’ll be interesting to see when it’s all occupied whether you can see where the pipes are when it snows!
Secret Agent again
Secret Agent Wednesday 19th October
Sought after area of Harrogate
3 bedroom place at just under £400,000. Damp downstairs and upstairs.
Phil says “All this place needs is a good plumber” … the owners had set up a plumbing business but that’s not bringing in the money to pay the mortgage so they need to sell.
Note to self: Don’t put bodge tape on broken tiles or leaking bathroom trim. It looks tacky and people will notice!
They’ve had to take a lot of money “out of the house to keep the business going”
One of their children is going to school in York so they want to move nearer.
Phil’s buyer has been looking for 15 months. The fact she’s not found anywhere indicates a problem. She’s not viewed many though.
Phil says there’s too much in the garden and they should clear out some of the stuff.
Phil meets their agent – who is also in a grey suit with a blue tie.
The agent says the sellers insisted on the price and the agent would recommend much lower maybe £350-360k.
The sellers decide to use a PR company who are going to use twitter to sell the house. Phil isn’t impressed.
They spend £2500 on it making it pretty again and sorting the damp and leaks out.
The buyer isn’t interested and they say they’ll sign up with another agent soon.
Carbon Monoxide detectors
Do you have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home? They’re not expensive and could save your life.
Carbon Monoxide Detector
The best selling detector at Amazon is the Kidde 900-0233 BSI Battery Carbon Monoxide Alarm and it’s £14.01 which is only a small amount to pay for peace of mind and could save your life.
Carbon monoxide doesn’t smell, it’s invisible and it can kill!
The Kidde KS901 unit flashes its green LED every 30 seconds when no hazardous levels of CO are detected.
In a CO emergency, the red LED pulses and an 85 db horn sounds at specific intervals until the CO threat is eliminated.
Powered by AA batteries, the KS901 is able to provide continuous monitoring of CO levels, even during power outages. Plus the unit has an alarm that tells you when the batteries need to be replaced. For peace of mind, a test / reset button allows you to test that alarm is functioning properly. Plus, the KS901 is equipped with a peak-level memory that keeps track of the maximum CO level detected between resets. The KS901 is covered with a five-year manufacturer’s limited warranty and replacement is recommended after seven years.
If you rent then your landlord might provide one – if they don’t then treat yourself to one. You can take it with you when you move!
If you own your own home then you should get one yourself.
If you’ve just bought a house then get one now! It should be on your list of things to do when you move in! Change the locals, check smoke alarms and install a carbon monoxide detector.
Heather Mills house for sale
Heather Mills house is for sale
9 bedroom house for sale in Robertsbridge, East Sussex
£3,900,000
House empty for years
This house has been empty since 1979 and the owner was given a grant of £55000 to do it up!
Sounds like council tax payers in Brighton have every right to be annoyed by this as the council wants to get a second compulsory purchase order
BBC news story
The work was never completed and the council is now attempting to obtain another CPO.
To be honest from the outside it doesn’t look too bad, the front garden looks like it’s been looked after
Older people in houses that are too big for them..
A report out by a charity today suggests that old people should move into smaller houses to free up the larger houses for young families.
The Intergenerational Foundation calls for tax breaks to encourage downsizing and help free up some of the estimated 25 million unused bedrooms in England.
BBC article
The report, entitled Hoarding of Housing, said that 37% of homes in England – about eight million – were under-occupied – meaning they had at least two unused bedrooms. This is up from 20% four decades ago.
I know several houses locally that are under occupied with 2 spare bedrooms. Should these people be encouraged to downsize? Is it easy to get rid of a lifetimes worth of clutter to actaully be able to fit into a smaller house?
Would the answer be for more people to have lodgers? Would that solve the crisis? After all the government has changed the housing benefit rules so that undr 35s can only have a shared room allowance now – something that used to be reserved for under 25s.
Would people be healthier with more company? There have been some reports that loneliness can lead to mental decline.
With heating bills constantly on the up, having another person in to share the bills would also help. Perhaps this would be one way of resolving both a housing shortage?
With the average age of first time buyers reaching 40 you can almost imagine that there are many families where people are still living at home rather than venturing out in to the world of lodgings.
I’m not sure the report is helpful to anyone. Yes there are a lot of empty rooms in the Uk that could be better used, but who has the right to force anyone to downsize or take on a lodger?