A Most Unique Property & Location
Dunnet Head Lighthouse Compound, Caithness (c) 2007 Unique Property Bulletin
NOW SOLD
Offers Over £225,000 For The Whole Compound
[Lighthouse TOWER Excluded From Sale: Owned By NLB]
Dunnet Head Lighthouse Compound (c) 2014 Jonathan Billinger
Estate Agents Description:
The village of Dunnet stands close to the north east corner of Dunnet Bay. To the north of Dunnet the land gently rises to form Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on mainland Britain whose cliffs fall 300ft sheer into the Pentland Firth. On a clear day the northern end commands some of the most extensive views you are likely to find anywhere in northern Scotland. These include the Orkney Islands to the north, and the length of the north coast of Scotland from Duncansby Head, 13 miles to the east, to Cape Wrath, just under 60 miles to the west. Sitting above the cliffs is the lighthouse and cottages built here by the Stevenson family in 1832. Dunnet Head has stunning sea cliffs and coastal grassland. These are home to puffins, razorbills, guillemots, fulmars, kittiwakes, shags and cormorants, and RSPB undertake annual seabird monitoring work and offer Seabird Walks in the summer. Of strategic importance during World War II, Dunnet Head has a number of old military buildings still standing on site The Queen Mother had visited the lighthouse on several occasions, the last being on 8 October 1979 when Mr Malcolm, Principal Lightkeeper, gave a conducted tour of the station. The Queen Mother later had tea with Mr Malcolm and his wife and met the other lightkeepers and their families residing at the station.
Dunnet Head Lighthouse View To Hoy and Orkney (c) 2014 Craig Brown
Further information and photographs etc….
Dunnet Head – Lighthouse Buildings For Sale – Click Here
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STOP PRESS
Thanks to a very good friend of Unique Property Bulletin, as of a few moments ago – just after 9pm 6th July 2014, we are now LIVE on Facebook…
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Unique-Property-Bulletin/1434941706790760
Over the next week or two we will have the appropriate buttons and widgets connecting this website to the social media facility. But it is well worth a look just now. A BIG thank you to Louise for all of her help and efforts 🙂
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A Castle Corner
Bretby Hall Apartment, Bretby Park, Bretby, Derbyshire, DE15 0QQ
Apartment 23 A Sad LPA Receiver Sale
Vacant three bedroom apartment. Set within the conversion of castle battlement fortified beauty of Bretby Hall. Excellent on-site amenities and with private entertaining spaces.
Guide £150,000 – Always Remember FTSAA
If you come across this listing after the auction check if it is a Failed To Sell At Auction. That can mean a bargain to buy.
http://www.eddisons.com/property-auctions/online-catalogue/182-232/
Tel – Eddisons: 0113 243 0101
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Birthplace of the Bulletin & Also Unique Property Syndicates (c) Photo Mr & Mrs Hogg
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From Small Acorns Grow
The Village Nursery, Princess Street, Lees, Greater Manchester, OL4 5AF
From this mansion style building you could create up to 10 homes. Planning permission currently exists for that. Some of our readers are looking for this exact type of project. To take a fine looking building, renovate and convert to several dwellings. Live in one and have a very respectable income from renting out the rest. The essence to create a unique lifestyle. This for some is as important as the unique home. To leave the “Cash Rich & Time Poor” lifestyle and change things around to have the freedom to bring up a family with financial security and have the grace of time to follow something you really love to do. An example might be to create a website which becomes and accidental success and an unexpected gift of meeting many unique people. But as we often say, that is a whole other story.
Guide: £200,000. Remember FTSAA
http://www.pugh-auctions.com/Lot/Manchester/20140724/084
Tel – Pugh Auctioneers: 0844 2 722444.
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Similar But Different
Former Chapel, High Street, Golborne, Cheshire, WA3 3AX
This is a similar looking building to the From Small Acorns Grow listed above. But at half the price, and less the benefit of planning permission.
Still it may be worth looking at given the relatively low price for a big detached building with lots of unique potential.
Guide £100,000. Please remember FTSAA
http://www.pugh-auctions.com/Lot/Manchester/20140724/078
Tel – Pugh Auctioneers: 0844 2 722444.
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Special Article – Churches List
The Old Church, Church Street, Flint (c) 2014 John Turner
Guide: Reduced To £79,950
Just one of many churches for sale.
This week we have a Special Article Feature listing several churches for sale. This is an added extra for those readers who like this genre of unusual building. There is a modest £1.56 donation to access this extra list of churches for sale. The modest donation significantly helps towards our fundraising, and pays for this website’s hosting and IT fees. These donations also keeps the main Sunday night, 9pm Unique Property Bulletin FREE to access for everyone. To access this spiritual abode list, please click the following Donate Button – with our thanks and appreciation ….
It is important to note, the Donate/Paypal system doesn’t let you back into the Churches Special Article webpage for a second look – or as many visits as you wish for the currency of the article [three months]. The good news is you can revisit this webpage by clicking here:
Special Article Feature: Return Visit Page – Click Here
Please remember the PASSWORD that your Donation Reply gives you.
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Custom House Creation
Custom House Hill, Fowey, Cornwall, PL23 1AB
A riverside masterpiece with direct water access and panoramic views up, down and across the beautiful Fowey estuary. This cleverly designed house is a true gem set on the water front in the heart of the picturesque village of Fowey. The views of the river are sublime and are available from most rooms extending from Bodinnick right across the river to Polruan.
Guide: £1,650,000
http://search.savills.com/property-detail/gbtrrstrs110081
Tel – Savills: 01872 243 200 – Jonathan Cunliffe
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EVERGREEN HEADLINES
Summary Page – Click Here
To purchase a FULL copy of the EVERGREEN page, with narrative, telephone numbers, and weblinks, just pop a modest donation across. Thank you.
This should yield your password and reveal the address, weblink and contact telephone number for each property on this page. Please note these properties CHANGE as this is a dynamic webpage is regularly updated remember to use your “F5” Button to refresh what appears on your screen and flush your old cache! We don’t want you missing any of the good stuff.
Click Here – Evergreen FULL TEXT Page
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Architecturally Unique
Unusual Water Feature
Martha Cove House, Saftey Beach
This week is a visually striking piece of design. The water and colours are what caught our eye.
FGR Architects
55 Little Latrobe Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000
Telephone: +613 9687 5650
Contact: http://www.fgrarchitects.com.au/contact-us
With Broadband and the internet shrinking the world beyond what could be imagined by so many merely 50 years ago, it is entirely possible for an architect anywhere in the world to design a unique newbuild home on another continent. This may be one example of exporting design ideas from the drawing board to w real life building plot on the other half of the hemisphere.
More photographs of this unique architectural design:-
http://www.fgrarchitects.com.au/projects/martha-cove-safety-beach
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Try Before You Buy
The property included within the try-before-you-buy section of the Unique Property Bulletin – is NOT for sale. Our endeavour is to provide a sample, and actual experience of what it would be like to live in any particular genre of unusual abode. This specific listing is for a short-stay break. Our offering this week is:
Time To Stay For A While
Peter’s Clock Tower (c) 2014 Ray Girvan
Clock Tower, The Strand, Lympstone, Exmouth Devon, EX8 5HQ
Peter’s Clock Tower is an amazing dwelling. Overlooking the Exe estuary, it is a short walk from the railway station in the large and pleasant village of Lympstone. It has quite tiny rooms, but the views are fascinating and you will find yourself surveying and participating in the daily bustle of life on the foreshore.
Sleeps 2 = 4 nights from £162.00
Equivalent to £20.25 per person per night
http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/peters-tower-10451/
Booking:-
http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/peters-tower-10451/#tabs=5
Tel – The Landmark Trust: 01628 825925
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Unique Property Bulletin Editorial
Red Line Can Be Sublime
Please Note: the following Title Plan is of Strathy Point Lighthouse Keepers’ Houses, which our Unique Property Syndicate purchased in 1999. It is NOT a Title Plan of this week’s special reportage at the Dunnet Head Lighthouse Keepers’ Cottages which are at a different site along the road. Our Apologies for any confusion. This Strathy Point example editorial was written several days before we had full confirmation of the Dunnet Head Lighthouse buildings coming for sale.
Plan Drawing of ONE Commercial Block of Unique Property
This is the Strathy Point Lighthouse Compound From 1999
Containing Several Dwellings All Within The One Title
It is a total pleasure each day to reply to the various emails from Unique Property Bulletin readers, visitors, members and friends. In an unscientific poll we studied several dozen of these emails and a two-word phrase came up more than other near-mantras. “If Only”. Not what you might expect. The “If Only” phrase is in terms of having the funds, opportunity or ability to acquire a unique dream home.
In a way this phrase is upsetting. For sure we used these words ourselves over the years. But here’s the thing: no matter whether you are battling bills or a billionaire – and trust us, readers from either end of this spectrum number amongst visitors to the Bulletin – there is an answer to “If Only”.
In fact having been at both ends of the bank balance spectrum, there is more fun and often a highly satisfying sense of achievement if against all odds you manage to secure that sublime sanctuary.
So this week we show one seemingly obscure way to do this – and save a small fortune into the bargain. FACT.
Red Lines. What is that about you may ask. A story, new to some, and well worth reviewing for established Bulletin readers.
Please take a look at these next two plan drawings which show a larger scale of the compound illustrated on the real life example Land Registry Title Plan Deed shown above:
Plan Drawing Of West Wing At Strathy Lighthouse Compound
Containing Two Semi-Detached Dwellings All Within The One Title
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Plan Drawing Of East Wing At Strathy Lighthouse Compound
Containing Principal Lighthouse Keeper’s Dwelling &
The Occasional Light Keeper’s Dwelling.
All Four Dwellings Within The One Title
First of all, this worked example could be any lump of buildings. The best counterpoint to this lighthouse flavour above is the possible three way Windmill split we have this: Click Here.
This Sublime Red Line principle can apply to anywhere where there are several buildings that co-exist under the one title ownership. For us and most readers there also has to be a uniqueness of the genre at any given or chosen site.
Back to the plan drawings above of the one lot for sale as a single entity, and which we know worked as we have all the documents, photographs and marvellous memories to prove it. Here is a beautiful picture that shows the glory of this style of unique building complex.
Strathy Point Lighthouse Compound (c) Sarah Chalesworth
Strathy Point Lighthouse Compound is from our 1999 Unique Property Syndicate and the core example of this sublime red line treatise. However with many of these multiple-property compounds there is:
A Problem ?
With any sale that has a number of buildings finance becomes a BIG issue. More often than not it needs COMMERCIAL funding, unless you have a very good bank balance and can buy cash.
When prospective buyers cannot raise a commercial mortgage – and lets face it this is very hard to do in the present banking climate, many would-be bidders drop out of the race. What happens? The principles of supply and demand come into play. The price is lowered.
In the above case at that time in 1999 Strathy Point Lighthouse Compound was sold at a low £80,000 for what was, in effect, four houses. But because they were being sold as ONE SINGLE lot it required a COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE for a lot of those buyers who were interested but were not 100% equity prospective purchasers. In the UK, a majority of house buyers require some form of mortgage or bank lending.
For some reason the £80,000 buyer for this lighthouse compound dropped out. Our Unique Property Syndicate at the time then cheekily put a £60,000 offer into the Northern Lighthouse Board. We could do this as the syndicate was debt-free and 100% equity driven. A cash buyer. It was a shock, albeit a nice one, when the Northern Lighthouse Board said yes and accepted our offer.
A Solution?
What happened next was what we have managed several times prior to 1999 and since 1999. The Sublime Red Line. Why sublime? Because it makes the “If Only” phrase redundant. This sad phrase can be replaced by “That Red Line Was Sublime”. How? By very carefully red lining the title for each individual property and distilling each title – with the help from good conveyancing solicitors – away from the “head title”. So that one unwieldy congealed lump of properties become several, more manageable bite-sized houses.
Plan Drawing Of North West Lighthouse Keeper’s House
Distilled, Via Red Line Title Drawing Ready For The Land Registrar
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Plan Drawing Of South East Occasional Light Keeper’s House
Distilled, Via Red Line Title Drawing Ready For The Land Registrar
This is repeated for the other individual former lighthouse keeper’s houses. The neatly red line separated title of each property means that each then becomes mortgageable on a RESIDENTIAL basis. Instead of the rare COMMERCIAL mortgage – that would have been needed for many a buyer of the WHOLE compound.
A residential mortgage is a much more readily available thing. The result of separate and individual red lined dwelling houses made residential mortgage funded sales possible to the houses that were not being kept. Many more folk can bid and buy. Simple laws of supply and demand again. Because more people can bid, the price goes up. At Strathy Point, it certainly did – check out the solicitor’s statements to prove the interesting results and what can make red lines sublime! The Unique Property Syndicate pages show and explain how those fellow Bulletin friends, readers and site members with the initiative and undaunted willingness to take such a project on and see it through to the finish can have a unique adventure. The resultant price savings carried through pro rata on each individual distilled single house also cured the “If Only” syndrome.
To see how this academic treatise was made real, and very lucrative as well as a project with unique property you just need to read a copy of the Unique Property Manual, or study a couple of solicitors statements from our Unique Property Syndicate pages.
Just check the detail in the solicitors document statements to see that by distilling individual homes from a commercial lump of property such as any given lighthouse compound – or windmill compound etc., can result in a significant uplift in cumulative site value.
This is how Red Line Can Be Sublime to quote the header of this editorial. In 1999 against the odds, our subscribers to the Unique Property Bulletin of the day – a small group of friends secured their dream homes for a fraction of what the cost might have been – had they not used the old gray matter and a neat red pen. You don’t need a degree in maths or arithmetic to see this. A forensic study of the facts, paperwork, and possibly a copy of the Unique Property Manual should provide ample proof that there can be an antidote to the depressing “If Only” phrase. Life is far to short. Consider exchanging tha gnomishly small Pimlico Flat in London or uneccentric semi-detached house in Edinburgh for something of your heart’s desire.
Now over to you! If you can find a castle estate, or a lump of lodges, or any parcel of multiple-property that can be bought commercially and then split into manageable individual homes, please let us know? Via our: Contact Page: Click Here
We are ramping things up at the Bulletin to move onto a new unique property adventure – if numbers support such a revived initiative. Goodness knows the feet are itching to embark on another adventure. It just has to fit the various requirements needed to work for all the small group of participants in any given project.
Hopefully this week’s editorial has shown that Red Line Can Be Sublime and offers a path to those who might otherwise struggle to secure that home of a lifetime.
PLEASE NOTE 1: Whilst this may appear a relatively simple exercise in distilling single dwellings from a larger title ownership, very careful consideration requires to be given to boundaries, rights of access, communal areas etc. It is important to seek professional advice from an architect or planning professional before embarking upon red line title distillation.
Hopefully you have found this week’s editorial helpful, interesting and informative.
Please Note 2: We are advised by McQueen Legal Estate Agnecy that there client is, at this time unwilling to sell any of the cottages separately. Their client wishes – at this time – to sell the WHOLE Compound at Dunnet Head.
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