Pub purchase

[Aprilia99]

wondering if any pearls of wisdom on this topic.

struggling pub in a village closed down 2 years ago, its available, grade II listed in need of some spending.

just to give some context if it was a house, it would be worth around 2m-2.25m with considerable spending (unlikely initially we go for change of use, but worth noting as a backstop )

so question is, how does one value the pub as its a free hold but with no relevant accounts.

in addition, what is the cleanest way to purchase, in a limited company i can only assume. raising cash isnt an issue, purchase will be 100% cash and perhaps lending taken out at a later stage to help with works.

appreciate some info is missing here.. but any advise would be appreciated thanks

[stevemcs]

Why did it close down in the first place ? if it was lack of trade has anything changed in the past 2 years that would increase trade ?

I guess there is a reason why its still empty and its probably not a sound investment.

[Aprilia99]

very dated restaurant with awful staff...

[anonymous-user]

If you are thinking of trying your hand at running as a pub / restaurant, maybe think of having 1 company to own the building and another, separate, one that rents the building from the first co

That way, if the pub / restaurant doesn’t fly, extricating yourself & the property can be easier

If you are planning to just hold it and covert to resi, then owing it in a ltd / partnership / yourself could all work depending on your overall situation

[BoRED S2upid]

Been there done that although a town centre pub.

Who owns it? Pub co I presume? If they are selling it freehold I very much doubt you’re going to get a bargain. Unless your a top notch chef I wouldn’t even consider running a pub.

Can you approach the council to see what the chances of a change of use would be? That’s the way to make a killing by the sounds of it.

[anonymous-user]

Don't think you can buy it and have option of selling as a house, it is probably a Asset of Community Value.

Another option is get the village to buy it as a community pub.

[Aprilia99]

is there a market for refurbishing to a good level and renting it out as a pub monthly?

it's not being sold by the pub co, its privately owned by a chap who has a few restaurants specialising in Indian, he tried but failed.

presume changing to a cafe and concentrating on the huge amount of cyclist passing as trade and school mums for lunch and breakfast wouldnt be an issue for the council, has good parking etc.

thanks for the comments thus far....

[lost in espace]

Similar story here, bought by the Council.

https://www.thecomet.net/news/knebworth-s-station-...

[anonymous-user]

My local became a community pub. You can still but shares etc and then run it as a business. It would probably end up pretty busy as people have a vested interest.

[Aprilia99]

already exists in the village, more thinking about changing the use, even to an offer or whatever, is that even possible ?

[classicaholic]

Get some cowboys in to refurbish it and have an "accidental fire", have to drop it & build loads of houses on car park then move to a different village! - Seems to happen quite a lot!

[Aprilia99]

hahahaha

[soxboy]

Aprilia99 said:

already exists in the village, more thinking about changing the use, even to an offer or whatever, is that even possible ?

Do you mean that another pub already exists?

If it's not a loss of a community asset why don't you buy it subject to obtaining planning consent for change of use from pub to residential? If it has been on the market for 2 years then it can quite easily be demonstrated that there is no demand for commercial use.

Other option is to buy it and rent it out to somebody to run as a restaurant, let them do the fit out.

We had a big old pub in our village (there were a number of others) where the bloke owned the freehold but didn't seem to know whether to run it as a pub or a restaurant - in the end the customers never really knew what they were getting from one week to the next and it went belly up. It was sold for quite a low price (£600k IIRC), a few of us joked about buying it and converting it to residential by carving into 4 townhouses but we didn't have the cash (or the kahunas) and it wasn't massively viable as it was a Grade II listed building.

A developer bought it and split it exactly as we had envisaged, however he had the confidence to think that the people buying the houses in the converted part of the pub wouldn't be that bothered about having much land and so put a terrace of 5 houses on the pub car park, thus massively increasing his return. I think the overall development value was about £3m!