Grade II listed - what do you think of this?

[Kittycat]

Hi Everyone

I got the council to send me all listed building consents on the property I'm interested in. And guess what! They haven't had permission for any of the modernisations that I can see are in place! They've been there for years. Everything is tasteful (to my way of thinking). However, since I've been reading up, I can see that some modernisations are inappropriate. This makes me suspect that there may be hidden modernisations as well. I still like the house but am very concerned that I could be buying a can of worms. Maybe all the paint is the wrong type. I can see that plasterboard has been used. If the council wanted me to change everything back, I couldn't possibly afford to do so. I'd be interested to hear what you would do?

 

[middi]

I doubt very much if anyone can find a "lived in" period listed building where inappropriate alterations, modern paints or cement based materials have not been used to some extend.

Plasterboard covered walls and inserted partitions are no real cause for concern as these type of materials and their application, including paints, is very easy to obtain and use and do nor create structural damage to the building, in most instances it just " covers things up" and make it easy to decorate etc....Also I dont tnink that CO's are overly concerned about their use, as in most cases it just covers and protects the existing fabric and structure.

This kind of " inappropriate" approach could, as you suggested, be covering a can of worms, unfortunately it can only be confirmed if you
open the can.

This is when " gut instinct" plays a big part in arriving at a final decision without the need and expense of a forensic approach to the problem.

What would I do ?, I am the inquisitive kind I tend to open cans.

 

[Moo]

How many of those modifications could be classified as 'part of the history of the house' ?

 

[Nemesis]

And how many removal of significant historic features which should have been retained?

 

[Moo]

How true.
Just a glance at my own house reveals wholescale removal of historic features - mostly done about two hundred years ago.
If planning rules could be applied retrospectively (and indefinitely) one would have to begin with the demolition of the house next door.

 

[bournonite]

We're just about to start work on an old nailers cottage in Birmingham - could be as old as 1500's - but listed grade 2 as a 'wonderful example of kentish rag stonework' with superb 'stone mullioned windows' When I pointed out that kentish rag was something found in kent, not birmingham, and that the mullion windows and stonework all over the inside of the house had suspicious steel mesh sticking out of the edges everywhere, and was faux stone in concrete, as were the mullions, the conservation people went a delicate shade of green.. Not surprisingly they are not putting too many blocks in the way of ripping the concrete out and getting back to the original fabric..

cheers

Pete

 

[Penners]

I can see that plasterboard has been used.

The use of plasterboard in a listed building isn't in itself wrong, damaging to the building or against accepted LBC practice. It depends how it's been used.

 

[Nemesis]

How true.
Just a glance at my own house reveals wholescale removal of historic features - mostly done about two hundred years ago.
If planning rules could be applied retrospectively (and indefinitely) one would have to begin with the demolition of the house next door.

Really, there's no point at all in listing anything, is there?

Bulldoze the lot would maybe be the easiest thing.

However, if items which are considered significant have been removed since listing - things which made somewhere listable in the first place - have been removed without consent, then that's the time to start worrying.


I have no idea of what the listing description of the 'Kentish rag' house says so can't comment. Usually though listing descriptions are fairly value free and taut. Words like ' a wonderful example' and 'superb' don't usually feature.

 

[bournonite]

Not sure - will have to check - those were the owners words, not from the listing itself. He's a top lawyer - think the listing people might be shaking in their shoes at the moment.. He's not amused at paying top price for a house that's not what it was supposed to be, after listing by so-called experts...

 

[Nemesis]

I doubt they are shaking in their shoes, believe me the Treasury Solicitor doesn't get too rattled too easily.

So he bought it for the listing description? Maybe should have used his eyes. Mistakes do happen but it's rare.

Caveat Emptor.

However - Kentish rag doesn't only happen in Kent, although a search on IoE doesn't bring up anything in Brum.

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?pid=1&id=478156


http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?pid=1&id=463789

 

[Flyfisher]

He's a top lawyer - think the listing people might be shaking in their shoes at the moment.. He's not amused at paying top price for a house that's not what it was supposed to be, after listing by so-called experts...

He might be a top lawyer but he hasn't shown much common sense. Is he seriously going to take legal action against the 'listing experts' to recover a portion of his purchase price or just sending out threatening letters like so many lawyers? Please keep us informed, I'd love to know what actually happens, but I think I can guess the eventual outcome . . .

 

[Penners]

So he bought it for the listing description? Maybe should have used his eyes. Mistakes do happen but it's rare.

Caveat Emptor.

Absolutely!

 

[bournonite]

Hang on...

Dont you think it makes a mockery of listing if this is the sort of incompetent muppet that goes out listing buildings???

:evil:

 

[Flyfisher]

Not really; mistakes can happen and I don't believe the listing description is intended to be a contractural guarantee. I'd expect a top lawyer to understand that.

 

[bournonite]

Mistakes..............

Its about as stupid as mistaking a kite for a jumbo jet...

We pay these idiots to list buildings and expect some professionalism from them as so called experts in their field. If I build a house or restore one for a client, and screw it up, I can expect at best to not get paid, and at worst to be sued for incompetence. How can anyone be expected to respect listing and listing conditions if this is the calibre of people making decisions about what people can, or more often than not, cannot do to their own properties.

Mistake.... NOT... Incompetence at the level of muppet who should not have a job to go back to on monday, yes.

 

[Lime]

Top lawyers invented Caveat Emptor.

For 'tis the sport to have the equivocator
Hoist with his own petar


Referring to Kittycat's original post I'm not sure that it is wise for you to procede with all the problems that you foresee.

I wouldn't.

 

[Flyfisher]

Mistakes..............

Its about as stupid as mistaking a kite for a jumbo jet...

. . . in which case you'd think a top lawyer would have spotted it :roll:

 

[Penners]

Not really; mistakes can happen and I don't believe the listing description is intended to be a contractural guarantee. I'd expect a top lawyer to understand that.

That's the point, surely. Who on earth buys a house on the basis of a description only - whether it's a listing description, an estate agent's description or my Auntie Norah's gossip.

You look, you check, you get surveys done... especially if you're a "top lawyer".

 

[Nemesis]

I would like to see the listing description, I would like to see the house.. it would be interesting to know when it was listed. It was probably listed a long time ago, without internal inspection. Things have changed since then. Of course, alterations to the interior in cement may have been done since that time, either with or without LBC. But if the listing description says it's Kentish rag that's interesting as a search for that term, and Kentish ragstone, brings up nothing that could be remotely described as the building referred to. And listing descriptions may say listed as a good example of the type but never do they say that a building is superb etc.

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk

Here's one:

IoE number: 181107
Location: PLUCKLEY, ASHFORD, KENT

Photographer: Mr Clifford W Turner
Date Photographed: 30 May 2003
Date listed: 10 October 1980
Date of last amendment: 10 October 1980
Grade II



5272 PLUCKLEY THE PINNOCK
Frith Farmhouse
TQ 94 SW 14/154
II


1. 5272 PLUCKLEY THE PINNOCK Frith Farmhouse TQ 94 SW 14/154 II 2. Two parallel ranges. Rear range C18 or earlier. Front range is Cl9. Two storeys Kentish ragstone with red brick dressings. Half-hipped tiled roof. Three double Dering windows.

I doubt anyone was 'an incompetent muppet', I have issues with EH at times over listing but really incompentent and ignorant I would not descibe them as. Misguded... but not through a failure to understand architecture.

EH isn't too old an organisation of course and this may well have been listed a considerable time before EH came into being. However, - never have buildings been listed by those wthout some considerable expertise usually. There are rare mistakes - clerical ones - but in general the listing description fits the building listed.

I presume that his conveyancing solicitor checked the listing with him at the time of purchase. If there were issues with the description, or alterations which looked as though they hadn't received LBC, that was the time to take up the issue.

I wonder if he's muddled the Estate Agent's details with the listing description?

 

[Nemesis]

Mind you, I see a search simply for ragstone brings up 868 hits, some of which are as far north as Cumbria. Nothing however in Brum.



IoE number: 484364
Location: RASH MILL COTTAGE AND ATTACHED BARN TO EAST (south side)
DENT, SOUTH LAKELAND, CUMBRIA
Photographer: N/A
Date Photographed: N/A
Date listed: 14 June 1984
Date of last amendment: 18 October 1999
Grade II


DENT SD68NE DENTDALE 162-1/10/134 (South side) 14/06/84 Rash Mill Cottage and attached barn to east (Formerly Listed as: DENTDALE Mill House & attached barn to east & barn (former cottage) attached to south) II Farmhouse with attached barn. Probably late C17 or early C18; altered. Mixed rubble, the house white-washed, with green slate roofs on 3 levels (stone slate to wing). U-plan formed by single-depth 2-unit house on east-west axis with a single-storey wing projected from the right-hand end (the barn, former cottage) and the barn forming a crosswing at the left end. The HOUSE, 2 storeys and 2 windows, has a single-storey gabled porch with a square-headed opening protecting a C18 door with shouldered and fielded panels; a rectangular 6-pane window to the left with one opening pane, a small square window left of this, and at 1st floor above these a very shallow oblong 4-pane window; and to the right a 6-pane sash at 1st floor. Large square chimney to left. The single-storey wing to the right has a stable door and a 6-pane window in its re-entrant side, a 9-pane window in the gable wall, and two 2-light casements in the west side wall. A garden wall links the wing to the barn. INTERIOR: plank partition wall on timber sill to right of doorway, with 2 board doors; housepart to left has 2 large chamfered lateral beams with exposed joists, heck to left screening stone quarter-turn staircase, with stone wood-hole attached to inner side of heck; complete court cupboard built into rear end of partition wall, with plain cupboard doors in the main body, a set-back top stage with carved doors and oversailing mantel with ball pendants. Partitioned service end: former parlour on south side, with chamfered beam, and narrow pantry on north side with stone shelves. The BARN, of coursed blue ragstone, has a blocked segmental-headed wagon doorway abutting the junction with the house, and a shippon doorway near the left corner. Its gable wall has 4 courses of through-stones. The east side has a wide lean-to outshut supported by a cylindrical pier, forming a cart-shed to the right and a porch to the left, and an outshut to the left of this.