Agents - an the lack of response

[P]

A while back thee was an agent complaining about potential purchasers who make appointments but fail to turn up.

We are in the process of arranging a trip to tour areas and merely look at properties from the road to arrive at a chosen area that is acceptable and where properties seem acceptable.

Some agents include a great deal of information about their properties on their websites whilst others include scant information and you have to email for further information.

Having come across a site for one of the 'scant info' merchants I emailed or some details and included why I wanted it.

The result - nothing.

From reading this forum times are bad for agents - when it comes to going to France with the Euros in our pockets it will be time to do our best to avoid the agents who cannot be bothered to create a good impression right from the start - and that includes failing to have detailed information on their websites and also failing to reply to enquiries.

[Will]

Not wishing to go into the relative rights and wrongs of, or the reasoning behind, either system, the way houses are sold and marketed is very different in a lot of respects in England and France. Very few French agents give comprehensive information on houses for sale (and notaires generally give even less). Also, although it is gaining in popularity, e-mail is not generally a favoured method of communication in France. Telephone, or face to face, is much better.

Do bear in mind that the majority of French houses for sale on the internet are no longer available - agents and notaires are notoriously slow to update things - and is the sort the hypeof a lot of agents' descriptions of English houses for sale really much more useful than the photograph / plot size / number of rooms of a French description?

The best way to find a house in France is to select an area, then make appointments with local agents, and, if you know the system and the language well, notaires.

[Ron Avery]

I am not sticking up for French Immobilisers P but if you understood the system here you would not be as critical of the lack of response that you are getting.

If you realise that: a)The buyer pays the agent's fees and b) a seller can place the property with any number of agents without telling the others  (IE multi agency but no contract)and at the same time strike a "private" deal, the reason for the apparent "secrecy" becomes clear. 

The simple reason for the lack of details, like an address,  is that the agent does not want you cruising round his houses and making a private deal with the seller.  Unlike in the UK where the full details of properties are posted in the window and on leaflets, few French agents give out this information until you go in to see them and sign a paper which binds you to pay them if you purchase any property that they have given you the details of.  Daft they are NOT

Also as many will tell you, forget much of the internet stuff, if it is still for sale when you get here it is overpriced, falling down or has a sewage works behind it

Do your tour, select your area and THEN make arrangements to meet local Agents in your chosen area, and go from there, also make lots of time for visits, if you see three houses in a day you will be doing well, this is a big country.

 

[Debra]

We are in the process of arranging a trip to tour areas and merely look at properties from the road to arrive at a chosen area that is acceptable and where properties seem acceptable.

Why would they bother if this is what you are doing?  They have to come with you to visit the properties and who would want to take a day out to be a guide for someone who is only researching and not ready to buy yet?  You can find people who will do this for you - at a price.  Its not really fair to expect immobiliers or notaires to act as tour guides.

Also, no way can you decide 'from the road' that properties are in any way acceptable.  We've been to see loads of properties that look marvellous from the road but when you get inside its a different story!  A lot of French houses have been added to outwards and upwards over the years (as extra space is needed) and this may be inside barns and up into attics - in ways you would never see in the UK and might never be happy with.  If you're looking at a shell and intend demolishing the inside and starting from scratch, then by all means look at properties from the road!

Its not even worth looking at houses with detailed descriptions and photos from the road.  The photos are often bad and make a beautiful room look awful or vice versa.

You need to decide on an area you like, research property prices for that area by researching on the internet and looking in agents and notaires windows - then make appointments with them, when you are sure where you want to buy and what you want to buy.  When you have an appointment with a notaire or immobilier you will find they may spend all day with you, including lunch and dinner, giving well above the care that UK estate agents would provide. 

Once you have specific areas in mind and are seriously ready to buy, I'm sure people on here will be able to give you contact details of agents they have found very helpful.

[Teamedup]

DebraA64, you have just posed one of those questions that comes into the catagory.........one of life's great mysteries

[Debra]

lol - I'm sure a lot of them end up doing it but not intentionally: surely most people would say they are ready to buy - not just doing a tour of the area or worse, all areas?

[WJT]

I had a similar problem with the agents at times and we knew the area we wanted and had the euros in the pocket, as you stated. I feel that many of the agents have had many time wasters and dreamers and it was me that had to stay in contact and pursue in most cases. There were one or two agents that were very helpful and I really wanted to buy through, unfortunately, it was the property that dictated not the agent and I am sure they are aware of this. I could not imagine a situation or expect an agent to spend a lot of time with me while I decide where in France I want to buy or just browsing so to speak, unless of course you pay for this service. By the way, someone please correct me if I am wrong but I do believe there are companies that do offer this service for a fee and will do research on your behalf.

[Tarn]

P. My advice is to be clear about which department and where within that department you wish to live. Then contact the agents. When we first started looking we knew where - roughly - we wanted to be and we ended up driving literally thousands of miles to get to agents offices, and missed some appointments.

They are used to UK buyers not turning up for appointments simply because they don't realise how big the country is. When book an appointment it's either morning, afternoon or all day. i.e. it's at least half a working day that the agent has to book in. If you make it clear that you KNOW where you want to be, how much you want to pay and what type of house you want you will generally find them to be very helpful.

[Debra]

WJT - Don't you feel awful when someone has been that helpful and you prefer a property someone else showed you?!  Yes there are such companies - you can't help but fall over them when you search for property agents on the net.  They'll do all the research for you and provide reports of areas and breakdowns of types of property and costs etc.  I've got a few saved in my favourites if anyone wants them but its probably best to find them yourself depending on the area you are looking at (you need to know at least a rough area you are interested in).

[P]

Debra - perhaps we all have our own methods of choosing an area. Initially, it is not just the area for us but also the type of property. I am not asking anyone to spend a day with me. BUT rather than just look at the area, what do the properties look like that we can afford. As for paying someone to do this for me, I would not find that acceptable, not because of the payment but because I need to actually see it rather than lay down some specification of what I want.

 

I must take issue with your statement ‘no way can you decide from the road that properties are in any way acceptable’. If it does not look right from the outside then it is not acceptable – for us. An area might be just the one but if the properties that we can afford are situated in unacceptable locations then the area is not right. It provides another little piece in the decision jigsaw.

 

I can assure you that I have used this method in the past within the UK and it works for me.

 

I agree that house descriptions can sometimes have wonderful descriptions applied to them and that agents are superb photographers but failing all else, it does provide some information and, if you look through reversed rose-tinted spectacles then it does become clearer.

 

My methodology in all of this on a step-by-step basis has been:

 

1. Can we afford the houses in France

2. Can we afford the houses in areas that we think might be suitable

3. Can we earn enough from investments to enable early retirement

4. Find the area we like that contains properties we like

5. Then start the detailed looking.

 

If item 4 fails then we will be back to the UK – we have done the research – including areas containing the type of properties we want and how those properties are situated, and this has enabled the elimination of a large number of areas.

 

Thanks Will and Ron for you comments, most useful and on one particular site at the top of each property they have emblazoned in red ‘this property is still for sale’ - your comments explains that and also that the seller has no real obligation

Just to add - I never try to waste peoples time, I would and do not take ask to see things, be it a property, car etc unless there is an intention to buy and the item might fit the bill. That is why I was upfront with the agent about what I wanted to do - I could have said 'I am ready to buy and would like to see these houses' but that would be most unfair on the agent. AND when it comes to keeping appointments then I always plan to arrive early as I hate people being late and if something should go wrong letting the other person know aap.

[Debra]

I must take issue with your statement ‘no way can you decide from the road that properties are in any way acceptable’. If it does not look right from the outside then it is not acceptable – for us. An area might be just the one but if the properties that we can afford are situated in unacceptable locations then the area is not right. It provides another little piece in the decision jigsaw.

 

I can assure you that I have used this method in the past within the UK and it works for me.

 

You can take issue with my statement as much as you like - I am only trying to give you the benefit of our experience.  We have made 7 trips to view properties this year and on each trip viewed approximately 30 properties - inside and out.  The properties we viewed all looked gorgeous from the outside - we didn't waste time looking at those that we weren't happy with from the outside. 

 

However, like I said in my previous post, the inside is a different story.  Once you have actually seen inside some French houses you will understand totally.  They don't have the same restrictions on building that we have in the UK and you will often see work that has been done that would be classed as positively dangerous in the UK and a UK surveyor would advise you not to touch the place with a barge pole. 

 

They don't have the same priorities on living space that people have in the UK.  For instance, a house which looks huge and lovely from the outside will turn out to have a badly built living space squashed into one end of it while the remainder of the building is space for animals (often the priority for owners of rural properties).  The second story on houses is often a hayloft and may be convertible, but there can be vast differences in just how much it would cost to convert.  From the outside it looks idyllic and you would never know.  You might think a property looks really nice from the outside and you can afford it, but once you look inside you realise you would have to rebuild the whole of the interior to make it acceptable to live in.  The costs of this are horrendous and mean that you really can't afford it after all. 

 

I can assure you that I have used your method in the UK and have a lot of experience of buying property in the UK - and I can also assure you that buying property in France is a totally different ballgame.  The main point is that you cannot have any expectations based on your UK property buying experience about the view from the outside of properties in France.

 

If you don't want to pay someone to do research for you and take you around the area, explaining what you can get for your money and what kind of state you can expect a property to be in for that money, then you need to do more than look at the outside of properties (while you're there, its a waste not to take a quick look around), believe  me: or not - you'll learn.

 

You say you have been honest about what you want to do - well then don't be surprised if you don't get a response.  These people don't earn very much for what they do and they don't have any incentive to help you if they know for certain they are not going to make a sale.  Simple.  There are people who will do what you want - provide the type of service you want, including taking you around the areas you are interested in: for a fee.

[Debra]

[quote]Debra - perhaps we all have our own methods of choosing an area. Initially, it is not just the area for us but also the type of property. I am not asking anyone to spend a day with me. BUT rather than...[/quote]

Your problem might be that you don't understand the way it works - they have to spend an afternoon or the day with you.  They can't just tell you where the properties are and you go and do a drive by, like you can in the UK, they have to accompany you, for various reasons. This will take an afternoon or a day because the properties are so far apart.  Agents cover huge areas.

[Ron Avery]

Debra This argument is all a bit academic, of course you can look at a property from the road and get a view of it, all of us have done it both in the UK and here in France, to see if it has noisy neighbours, a sewage works or scrap yard next door or lots of gravel lorries coming down the lane next door, you can also see if the photos are a true likeness or that the lovely stone block walls are in fact a cement coating with lines it it

You are right, French Agents do like to come with you, but they are not averse to giving you addressees of properties particularly a long way away after you have signed that important piece of paper, so that you can visit and see if you want to have a further look around inside with the Agent of course

Our agent did this when we were looking at a house that was miles away to the north and outside his normal area, he suggested we looked at it this from the road as he did not believe that we would like the property as it was too small and on a main road, he was right we did not like it.

[Debra]

That's interesting about them letting you do a drive by after signing the paperwork - we've always been told the agent had to come with us and understood it was a legal requirement.  I thought it was perhaps that if they hadn't actually shown you the property and you liked it, you were open to make an offer through a different agent or even the owner.  Or do you sign a contract for each property they give you the details of?

In any case, like you say, they are usually honest and will tell you that so there is no need to go and see those with scrap yards next door.  The point I'm trying to make is that you may as well look inside if you are going that far, cos no way can you decide if you can afford a property that looks nice from the outside, as the inside may need totally demolishing which obviously increases the costs.  'Needs renovating' or 'needs updating' can mean anything from the usual UK version of that to 'derelict', which means you're only getting a shell of a building and basically need to rebuild the inside.  Like I said before, the only way you can be happy that you can afford somewhere with a drive by is if you are looking for a property which is a shell and you intend to rebuild the inside so its irrelevant.

In the UK you can drive by properties and look at the area because you have a decent description including room sizes and you know that in most cases, the worst case is that the decoration will be awful and you might want to instal a new kitchen and bathroom, replace fireplaces and perhaps change the heating system or the pipes and wiring (which may be obvous from the details anyway).  In fact, its a good thing to do because UK estate agents are very adept at taking photos which magically hide that scrap yard next door!  Building regulations in the UK mean that for someone to be able to sell a house it has to be of a certain standard of build and safety.  If its not (not that common a circumstance), the agent will tell you up front. 

However, in France we've found that the pictures of the outside are usually truthful - its the inside that reveals the real horrors!  Anything goes!  The agent won't warn you of the standard of work that's been done inside because its not unusual in France.  You just don't see properties in the UK which have these kind of horrors inside, do you?  So if someone hasn't seen what these idyllic looking French properties can contain - surely its not purely academic to give them a hint??  The hint being that you can't judge a book from its cover to any extent that you can in the UK!

 

[Owens88]

We found them to be a very mixed bag, and yes that makes it harder to 'research' than in the UK.

Some comments:

*There doesn't appear to be the equivalent of the Property Misdescriptions Act that has applied in the UK for ages. Ask some probing questions before a long journey!

*Some agents do minimal details, some do comprehensive. Its not a legal thing its culture / oomph (or laziness). If a lazy one is  messing you about why not ask an active one what they know about a specific property ?

*The risk of the agent being 'cut-out' of the deal is very real so they have some  protectionist processes. Their commission is 3-4 times higher (as a percentage) than a UK estate agent so there is more to win (and lose) on either side.

 

We found it incredibly frustrating to try and plan visits while in the UK. We did encounter many 'good' agents, and many not so good. Eventually we bought a view with a property attached - and not in our original target area.

 

Good luck.

[Tresco]

P said:

I can assure you that I have used this method in the past within the UK and it works for me.

It worked for us too, but it is a completely different system here, as numerous others have said already. Debra mentioned that she had made numerous house hunting trips before finding the right one. How much money will all those trips have cost compared to hiring a house search agent, or even better, compared to biting the bullet, settling on an area, and spending maybe two solid weeks seriously looking with ' or 5 agents?

There may be the odd agent who, once they have realised you are serious, will give you an adress so you can view the house from the outside alone. For us this happened once only, after viewing dozens of houses for a friend over the course of 10 months (one of which they had made an offer on). On this occasion it took the agent something like 30 minutes to describe to us how to get the property, with a hand drawn map saying things like 'turn left at the rusty tractor, turn right after the fallen Oak' etc etc

Once you know your area, and have viewed some properties, and actually seen some of the 'horrors' that Debra mentioned, only then can you really be specific about your specification for the interior, and only then will you know where the sewage works, main roads, High Tension Pylon runs, or whatever it is that offends you, are.

It is completely frustrating for purchasers I agree, but that's because it is so hard to leave our British system mindset to one side, and essentially, that is what you have to do to get anywhere. It should be pleasurable, but I don't think it will be unless you do this.

 

 

[Debra]

Our problem was made worse because we were looking for a property with a lake.  This meant we couldn't settle on as narrow an area as we could if we were only looking for a house, as lake properties don't come up that often.  Also, relying on agent's descriptions for houses is bad enough - try out their descriptions of lakes!  We offered on one property in January but we didn't get the CU that was 'guaranteed' by the agent because the commune would have had to contribute a large amount towards getting electricity to the site. 

After that one we looked at lake properties over a large area but ended up deciding to go for a separate house and a lake nearby.  In the end we bought a house near the lake we had previously offered on but couldn't get a CU on, hoping the guy would lower his price but knowing by this time that there were a lot of lakes in the area and having decided we would just wait for a suitable lake property to come up within an acceptable travelling distance.  We'd found we kept coming back to that area so it was definitely the favourite.  Would we have been so certain about that without so many trips?  If we'd used an agent to search for us we might not have been so sure about the area, or happy to buy the house first and wait for a lake to come up.

The latest trip was because another lake property came up much sooner than we expected!  It had just come on the market and there was only a land plan, no photos.  From the details it looked much better than the one we'd been hanging on for and was for the same price we'd offered for the other one (since the CU had been refused).  Hubby went to see it on his own this time (me and the kids couldn't cope with another marathon so soon!) and it was perfect. 

However, if we'd seen the agents photos (produced later) beforehand, he would never have gone to see it as they made it look completely different to how it turned out to be.  Similarly others we've been to see have looked lovely from the photos and have turned out to be totally unsuitable.  Incidentally, we wouldn't have liked the house from the photos either - it looked much better inside than the photos made it look!

The original poster may have less criteria and more of a budget to cope with the 'horrors', so all this may seem irrelevant, but in my experience you really do need to see inside houses even if you haven't decided on a specific area yet, because the 'state' is so much more variable in France than we are used to here in the UK and can make a huge impact on the affordability of that idyllic looking property.

[Debra]

Just a thought, but you never can tell from a 'lack of response' either.  There is always that lovely friendly, helpful agent who has lots of properties to show you, so you make an appointment with him and assign a day to him in your schedule - only to get there and find out the properties were 'coming up' but he hadn't had the contract signed yet or 'just been sold'.  Then the agent who didn't seem that friendly or helpful via email and who only had a few properties, so you made an appointment for an afternoon - but then turns out to have lots of possible properties and also contacts with a few notaires who also have lots of properties to show you and you end up spending the day and night with him and postponing another appointment to fit him in for the full day!

[Tresco]

 'If we'd used an agent to search for us we might not have been so sure about the area, or happy to buy the house first and wait for a lake to come up'. Debra

Debra, even without the particular requirement you had, one persons 'beautifully renovated' or 'peaceful location' is very often different to anothers. For this reason a search agent would have been no use to me at all. I have done it for a friend, and it was a very very difficult task.

The house we bought bore little relation to our original 'spec', apart from location. Every house we saw that answered the spec on paper had been carved up on the inside so badly, dark corriders with dog leg turns, along with the horrors you are hinting at in your previous posts, we ended up buying a house that had not been altered structurally at all; in fact it had not been altered since it was built over 100 years ago!

I had sworn I would not do this, but it was cheaper than making endless trips (with no guaruntee of success), as the location was near perfect.

So the original poster will see from this that for me location came first, as it does with him (?) but to find this location we had to make a couple of trips, just to rule out areas within the area, if you follow me.

 

 

[P]

Debra – sorry about my reaction to your experience based advice. My reason for also wishing to view houses from the outside in areas is really for the price difference that can exist between areas in the UK and I presumed it would translate to France.

 

Agree on the descriptions. Some are extremely full whilst others very scant. Some of the descriptions seem to provide enough information to be able to either pinpoint their location or very near to their location. Therefore, our thoughts had been to plan our trip going by some of the properties so that we could judge the overall area and specific areas. I live in Surrey and overall Surrey is nice but there are parts that would be a no.

 

I will heed your warnings about the idyllic looking property being a total mess inside. Although, at the right price it does mean that the renovated property is as you want it but, from experience, the ‘client’ (ones loved one) usually changes the specification and the costs go up and up.

 

I have also spotted that some have a combined living room, dining room and kitchen with the bath on the ground floor, two bedrooms on the first and an attic ripe for conversion.

 

So taking everyones advice into account I think our best plan will be to visit the various areas, specifically visit within those the area in which some of the houses are and arrive at a chosen area.

 

We realise that we may need to make several trip when we decide to buy and perhaps use a search agent once everything is firm.

 

Also that the house finally purchased may not be where we originally thought, be nothing like what we originally thought we wanted.

 

Many thanks

[Ron Avery]

[quote]That's interesting about them letting you do a drive by after signing the paperwork - we've always been told the agent had to come with us and understood it was a legal requirement. I thought it was ...[/quote]

Just to make a final point Debra in response to your "However, in France we've found that the pictures of the outside are usually truthful"  The example I cited about the mock stone walls was actually true, my wife loved the house on the internet, so we asked an agent in the area that we were looking at other houses with, if he could arrange a viewing.  The agent, a very honest Dutchman, told us the property was not worth seeing, and that the internet pictures of the house used by a well known London based UK Agent were indeed giving a false picture of the actual property.  We insisted and he showed us it.

It did have a lane next door used by heavy lorries, the walls that had been a beautiful pink stone had been rendered in grey cement and carved to look like yorkshire stone and the French owner had put a grand staircase into the property from the ground floor to the 1st floor that had taken up over half of the living space, to compensate, he had built into the loft but he had large cross beams in there, so he had made bedrooms in there into little caves covered in pink paper mache walls that you had to crawl into on hands and knees under the beams to access

[Debra]

lol OK - you got me.  Never come across that type of thing before!  I have lots of horror stories about the insides of houses but I still have nightmares about some of them so I won't go there!

[letrangere]

An agent friend in 24 told me that you quickly develop a sixth sense when it comes to spotting time wasters and that she was so busy a few years back that she had to filter enquiries between those she felt were genuinely keen to buy and those who just wanted to nosey around.  Fully realise it's their job but French rural agents often have to drive huge distances between properties so whereas in a London suburb you could easily view 6 or 8 properties in a morning, you'd be lucky to see that many in a day in parts of the Dordogne. 

We toyed with using a property search company but the ones we located did not come cheap and we certainly wouldn't have saved any money.  Also, we felt that we got a better feel for the local market, the area and what was available by doing all the legwork ourselves.

Debra, I still have nightmares too about some of the places we've viewed and have posted on the subject before.  The dog poo littered lawn is one, it was like crossing a minefield.  The beautiful house with the derelict interior reminiscent of a slum in a Zola novel, complete with inbred, toothless old hag cackling in the corner.  (My OH still gets the shivers about that one.)  My favourite was the bedroom floor strewn with the owners' discarded underwear.  I'm not expecting Homes & Gardens styling but you'd think sellers would put their knickers in the laundry basket before inviting potential purchasers round!

M

[Jon 1]

Hi P,

Once you have settled in France you will begin to realise how the French operate.  This does not mean you will understand them or indeed agree with their methods.  From experience I find that they rarely reply to e-mails, and this is not just the EA's....... hospitals, utilities, government departments etc, can be the same.  This has always puzzled me, given that they have web sites which are set up, and invite communication by this method.  Recently we have experience of a hospital ignoring repeat e-mails and letters.  Some organisations will not even respond to telephone calls, particularly if they have an answerphone system.  France is a socialist state with a very laissez faire approach to business, customer relations and communication.  There is also a very pragmatic approach to business.  If you are not standing right in front of them they can show little interest.  Even in this latter context there can also be disinterest.  Yesterday we went to our local large Renault garage as the car has a problem.  We asked to book the car in and the response was an abrupt NO we are too busy.  We had to really persist to get anywhere and all without a smile or sorry or alternative suggestions or an undertaking to accept the car in the future.  Three nights ago we ordered a taxi well in advance, to meet up with family at a restaurant.  The taxi did not turn up.  I telephoned them to find an uncaring and unresponsive owner/driver.  By now we were significantly late for our meal.  I telephoned other companies and finally one gave a categoric assurance he would arrive in a maximum of 15 minutes.  He never did.  I could go on with numerous other examples, but perhaps this gives you a taste of what customer relations and communication can be like in France.  I too have e-mailed numerous EA's with no response.  Finally I agree with your method of initially looking at the outside of a property.  If it does not satisfy your requirements at this very first stage there is no point in wasting your time or the EA's.  I have used this method and made it clear to the EA right at the beginning.  As long as you sign their slip which means you cannot go direct, or to another EA, they have been accepting of this approach.

Good luck,

Jon

[Debra]

Finally I agree with your method of initially looking at the outside of a property.  If it does not satisfy your requirements at this very first stage there is no point in wasting your time or the EA's.  I have used this method and made it clear to the EA right at the beginning.  As long as you sign their slip which means you cannot go direct, or to another EA, they have been accepting of this approach.

I see your logic, Jon, but the problem is you can have no idea of affordability via this approach.  You still need to see inside those which you think are nice from the outside - not just tick off the area as having affordable houses and therefore being a possibility.

OK - one nightmare to re-live as an example: four bedroomed detached farmhouse, recently renovated and decorated, with 5000m2 lake on 2 hectares of land.

Looked lovely from the road.

What a lot of barking though....??  Inside: the man bred French poodles.  There were 85 dogs in cages, three to a cage, inside the house, stacked up everywhere.  The place was filthy, thick greasy dirt, embedded with dog hair, everywhere.  The cobwebs were so established they were supporting thick wood shavings and sawdust with no bother.  The air was so thick with the smell of dogs, it was difficult to breathe.  My son (violently allergic to dogs) had to wait in the car while we politely looked round the property.  The 'recent renovation' was incomplete and had been started in the early 70's.  Every room was tiled with different tiles of horrible differing totally clashing patterns and it was dangerous walking across these tiled floors because they were so uneven, waiting to trip you at every turn.

He kindly said he was leaving the fitted kitchen, which looked like MFI's cheapest (30 years ago) - when I touched the corner of it with one finger, just lightly, the whole thing moved.  He said he was taking the cooker, which made us look at it and see the huge pellets of rat poison under it, stuck in the thick layer of grease and dirt.

Upstairs, only half of it was converted and there were only two bedrooms, not four.  Apparently the old oak floors had been uneven so he had built up an 'even' floor so that his furniture would stand properly.  We noticed cracks in the ceilings around the joins with the walls and also down the corners of the walls and thought maybe something wasn't quite right.  We found out what it was when we stepped up onto this floor, the whole thing moved!  Even the fully tiled bathroom (done in three different types of clashing tiles) moved - the whole thing! It was amazing.  His built up floor was basically a box of chipboard sat upon the old wonky floorboards and obviously it wasn't secured in any way as the whole structure of two bedrooms and a bathroom which was sat on top of it was like a floating platform!

The original stone walls of the farmhouse had been insulated with three inch polystyrene panels (knocked off in places, so we could see the layers) and then he'd put fake polystyrene 'stone effect' walls on top of that on some walls.  On others there was really rough tongue and groove panelling.  On others a sort of thick artex - painted in lime green and orange.  The original oak beams had been supplemented with more modern pine beams (looked pretty dodgy) and painted with a thick black tar-like substance.

The original fireplaces were there - painted in red tile paint, with orange bricks filling in the gap where the fire would go, and another different coloured brick all over the chimney breasts.

Every cupboard was like something out of a horror film, black, filthy, scary.

Having gone this far we escaped to the garden to see the lake (and get some fresh air and give our ears a rest from the barking).  The land was a bare, straight strip of 'meadow' containing two donkeys who had chewed up the land everywhere with their hooves.  It was quite a feat avoiding holes in the ground, donkey poo and poodle poo.  The 'lake' was a horseshoe shaped hole in the ground which looked like it had been fairly recently scooped out with a digger (it had) around a huge dead tree (which he couldn't be bothered to dig out so he went around it).  It looked like a muddy, green clay pit with sheer clay sides, no vegetation around it to neaten the edges or anything.  Hubby said it was possible that fish could live in it but ........

There is probably more, but I don't want to dwell on it any longer!  We weren't even sure that it would be possible to remove the whole inside, floors, walls, everything and start again, as we couldn't be sure the beams were safe.  We managed to escape eventually but we honestly had nightmares about that property for a long time.  The thing is - it looked quite nice from the photos and from the outside!