Selling up

I’m selling my home.  It’s a case of having to.  Financially I cannot hold onto it anymore.  It is the house I have lived in for the first 23 years of my life and the latter 14.  It’s been in my family for over fifty years.

The prospective sellers instructed a surveyor to come around to check the property over yesterday, probably with a mind to knock me down a few more thousand pounds.

When the surveyor asked me how long I had lived in the house and I told him my family had lived there for around fifty years he asked me is that when the house was built! Well to me it is glaringly obvious the house is old, very old and that didn’t instill in me the greatest faith in this surveyor. When he went around doing his business it felt to me like he was prying trying to find fault with my lovely house and that annoyed and upset me.

What would he see?  I can guess he would see the tile that needs replacing on the slated roof.  He would probably also notice that the wiring would need updating after circuit upon circuit was added when the house was extended bit by bit to meet the needs of a growing family.

I bet he’d notice that the dining room ceiling had little damp spots where the water would run through from the above shower if the kids didn’t put the shower curtain in place properly when languishing idly in the shower not washing but just standing under the hot water.

He probably noticed that the loft still housed the original roof which my Dad didn’t bother knocking down when he raised the roof, after all it added more insulation.

I wonder though if he noticed the loving and charismatic feel of the cottage.  The feel of welcoming arms holding you and drawing you into its lovely atmosphere?  I wonder if he’d notice the old wooden beams and that my Dad had painstakingly added an additional beam between every existing one chipping each strip of wood by hand to resemble the older ones.  Would he notice the wooden windows which I helped my Dad to make and fit. Each handmade and not quite the same as the other.  I wonder if he’d notice that one of the children had written ‘Dewi can’t see this’ high above a shelf in crayon (Dewi being my youngest and therefore smallest at the time) and I didn’t have the heart to paint over.  I wonder if he’d notice that in the upstairs bedroom the tiny piece of wallpaper I left behind the fitted wardrobe was the wallpaper on the room when my Aunty and Uncle lived there before my Mum and Dad?

Would he notice the big old stone fireplace with hooks to hang on the meat that we discovered behind a piece of ply?  Would he notice that the wood going up the stairs was original shiplap from boats and placed there in the 18th Century.

Would he know that visitors to the house would always comment on ‘the lovely feel’ of the house. Would he know that I once had a book dedicated to my house called ‘One for Rose Cottage’?  Would he know that old school friends still want to come back to visit just to see the house?

I doubt it.  I can imagine that he would just see work that needs to be done and hundreds or maybe thousands that could be knocked off the agreed the selling price.  

So prospective buyers when you come back to me with your multi-paged extensive surveyors report asking for a reduction in the price, I will tell you I won’t be dropping the price for any additional work required because as far as I’m concerned you are getting more than bricks and mortar for your money.  You are getting a house with a heart and soul……….. and that’s pretty much priceless!