Property

Where are the cottages?

Michael Hanson

The saleroom at Webbs Hotel, Liskeard, was crowded the other day when a firm of Truro estate agents and auctioneers, Stratton and Holborow, invited offers for Glebe Cottage, a three-bedroom nineteenth-century stone and slate building near one of Cornwall's curiously named churches, St Wenna, which is surrounded by rhododendron bushes, at Morval, four miles north of Looe. Bidding began at £8000 and rose rapidly to £14,350, just like the old days of the property boom, but this time there was a difference, for Glebe Cottage was sold to a Mr Dunne, who came not from London or the stockbroker belt of Surrey, but from Liskeard.

That is the sign of the times, for the market for country cottages has never been quite the same since the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, introduced in his first Budget in March 1974 the provision that an owner-occupier is entitled to tax relief only for a loan to acquire or improve his principal place of residence, and even then the relief is limited to the interest on a mortgage up to £25,000. Where did he get the idea for such a restriction ? It had been suggested less than six months earlier in an eighty-page document published by NALGO, the National and Local Government Officers' Association, which called for an end to tax relief on second homes and a ceiling on other loans.

This has had its desired effect of reducing the demand for, and therefore the price of, country cottages so that they are once again within the reach of local people—if, that is, they can afford the mortgage repayments, the ever-increasing rates and the inevitably higher insurance premiums that the pastoral property attracts if it is thatched. That does not mean that the market for second homes has come to an end; it is merely running at a lower level of activity as people continue to feel the pinch.

Country cottages come in all shapes and sizes, and some are cottages only in name, their luxurious fittings commanding prices that puts them beyond the reach of many an urban bumpkin, let alone a country one. Roger Whittaker, a folk singer, recently put his sixteenth-century country 'cottage' on the market for sale through his local Saffron Walden agents, Cheffins Grain and Chalk, and the Mayfair agents, Savills. Quite apart from all the bedrooms and bathrooms, it has an indoor heated swimming pool and a modern stable block. But that is not all, for there is also a Finnish log cabin with a recording studio, sauna and games room, and instead of a cottage garden it has seven acres of land. No wonder that offers over £59,000 were being invited for the property. That is an extreme example: there are 'cottages' in the stockbroker belt of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire that command prices of up to £100,000, but seldom as second homes. More typical of the true country cottage were the six cottages on the Shill inglee Park estate, near Chiddingfold, Surrey, which were sold at auction by Savills during the summer at prices between £10,500 and £16,200. The cottages were semi-detached, the highest price being paid for a pair that was sold as one lot for possible conversion to a single house.

Here it should be noted that planners and politicians are often unsympathetic to the idea of improving or converting country cottages. It was the last Conservative government that tightened up the system of grants for housing improvements so as to deny them to owners of second homes, many of whom were able to make what a White Paper called 'unjustifiably high profits' by reselling the cottages after they had been improved with the aid of a grant.

Surrey County Council is only one of many local authorities that is concerned about the social effects of converting or enlarging country cottages so as to put them beyond the reach of local people who want to continue living in an area, but there is now an increasing acceptance by planners that many local people, especially young adults, no longer want to live in a remote part of the countryside in an old and often unmodernised cottage, no matter how picturesque it may seem. Rural depopulation is continuing, as people drift to the towns and cities in search of better-paid jobs and council housing built to Parker Morris standards. If the cottages they leave behind are not snapped up and modernised, they will simply decay.

If so-called cottages can cost up to £100,000, what are the cheapest such properties one can find these days ? The answer to this question depends upon how far one is prepared to go from civilisation. Down in the West Country, for example, there are still plenty of country cottages to choose from at prices below £10,000. John Lewington, of Penzance, had a two-bedroom terrace cottage in the Cornish village of St Just on his books at £6000 during the summer,

while a two-bedroom semi-detached cottage on the edge of the same village was priced at £8750. It is a measure of the premium that buyers still place on the charm of old cottages that the same estate agent was offering brand-new three-bedroom houses for sale at Hayle, near St Ives, for only £8250.

Come nearer to London and the prices begin to rise. According to Jackson and Jackson, of Lymington, who act for Lord Montagu of Beaulieu for the disposal of houses and cottages that become available for sale on the Beaulieu estate from time to time, small cottages in the New Forest with hardly any land at all are fetching prices be tween £20,000 and £30,000. Prices are even higher in some of the most sought-after parts of Surrey and Buckinghamshire, and Parker's Property Price Guide, the monthlY Bible of used-house prices, indicates figures of up to £40,000 for three-bedroom cottages in the Gerrards Cross and Chalfont St Peter area.

To the east of London, however, prices are lower again, with estate agents such as Bairstow Eves, of Shenfield, able to offer several attractive country cottages in Essex villages at prices less than £10,000, though at this price one cannot expect much more than a two-bedroom cottage in need of some repair or modernisation.

When it comes to the question of repairs, of course, one could easily find that the cost

is as much as the purchase price. This is whY it is advisable to have a structural surveY made by a qualified building surveyor or an architect, though this may cost £100 or more A cheaper alternative in Wales is to have an experienced builder examine the cottage and estimate how much it will cost to repair.

One such builder, Philip Cochrane, charges a modest fee of £5 for such an inspection and estimate, plus 5p per mile for travelling expenses within a thirty-mile radius of his home in Builth Wells.

Where can one find country cottages? Apart from local agents, the managing agents of large agricultural estates may have cottages that are surplus to the requite' ments of the estate. Indeed, the present Government's decision to extend security of

tenure to the tenants of tied agricultural cottages may encourage some landowners to

dispose of cottages once they become vacant, rather than to re-let. them. From time to time, cottages become available

when they are surplus to the operational

requirements of such bodies as the ForestrY Commission or the British WaterwaYs.

Board. Even the Queen has sold surp/os cottages on the royal estate at Sandringham.