"not on National Grid" valuation

"not on National Grid" valuation

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UVB

Original Poster:

557 posts

195 months

Tuesday 18th September 2012
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I'm hoping there are some informed opinions on there that might help on this topic. My parents moved out to SW Wales (near Tenby) many years ago and bought a 9 acre plot in the middle of nowhere with a couple of buildings on it. One was a small house (2 up, 2 down) that had been gutted by fire and the other was a coach house and cow shed that was deemed to be in a better state for conversion. Fast forward to the current day and after much time, effort and money they have a decent, habitable and quite unique property now.

As it is some way from other properties, they are not on the national grid but have a wind generator and solar panels that supply most of the electricity they use. They have an advanced control system that regulates the charge to the bank of batteries and can also automatically kick in a petrol generator when required. They have a septic tank for sewage and a pump that draws fresh water through a bore hole to a spring that runs about 90ft under the property. They also use rainwater reclamation for toilet flushing. They use calor gas for cooking and have all the mod cons you'd expect in a home. Oddly they do have a normal landline telephone, courtesy of BT stiffing me with a "standard charge for all installations" to reactivate a second line at my house one day which led to me suggesting they go into a BT shop and sign up for their "standard installation". Surprisingly enough BT honoured the contract and installed the line along with about 9 telegraph poles to reach their property.

Finally getting to my question, what sort of impact should the above have on the value of the property? Sadly due to ill health it looks like they won't be able to stay there for much longer and a local agent gave them a rough valuation over the phone that's about £30k more than the value of something I found in NW Wales which looks exactly like their place before they started work on it all those years ago. The agent was apparently very interested in the property right up until the mention of not being on mains power. Getting on the national grid isn't a possibility as apparently they would have to fork out about £40k for a transformer or something like that, due to the distance they are from the nearest line.

Should something like this have such a negative effect on the valuation? I'd hoped there might be some form of specialist eco agents working on a national basis that could be more suited to this type of property but what I've seen online doesn't look like it has been a successful opportunity for those that have tried. Can anyone give me some professional insight as to their likely best way forwards? Should they just get 3 different agents to value it and go with who seems to have the best (valuation/belief in their ability to maximise the sale)?

UVB

Original Poster:

557 posts

195 months

Wednesday 19th September 2012
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mattley said:
Perfect also for the Zombie outbreak.
Lol...as it happens he's a keen Left4Dead player so perhaps that was the plan all along!

Thanks for the advice/encouragement everyone; James P, I suspect anything more than the region of £5k would be out of their range to get connected I'm afraid but if it looks like that might change I'll drop you a line (the house has basically sucked all the funds they have over the years).


UVB

Original Poster:

557 posts

195 months

Wednesday 26th September 2012
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Thanks for that - have bookmarked them for when the time comes.

UVB

Original Poster:

557 posts

195 months

Thursday 27th September 2012
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Also added - thanks both of you!