Our dream doer-upper turned into a £200,000 nightmare 

Like galore during lockdown, Becky Lane and her hubby Adam were anxious to escape London.

In 2021 the brace ditched the city, and moved into a 1930s bungalow successful the Surrey countryside, with their 2 children, past 5 and one.

Having already renovated 2 properties, Becky says she ‘saw potential’ successful the agrarian retreat, and planned to physique a ‘dream home’ for her family.

But that imagination rapidly turned into a nightmare: ‘We ne'er signed up for each this drama,’ she tells Metro.

We’ve each watched an occurrence of Grand Designs oregon Homes Under the Hammer and fantasised astir buying a run-down spot and transforming it into a imagination home – oregon selling it for doubly the price.

And it seems to marque a batch of fiscal sense. The mean UK location terms has deed a grounds precocious of £293,999, truthful these older properties tin look similar a cost-effective way to location ownership. 

But with mortgage rates rising and the outgo of gathering materials successful the UK expanding by implicit 40% since the pandemic, the fixer-upper is acold from easy.

Many buyers who person taken connected these mammoth projects person recovered themselves straddled with unexpected costs and never-ending setbacks.

‘We spent treble our £100,000 budget’

Having antecedently renovated their London level making £100,000 successful equity, Becky, 38, and Adam, 37, were seasoned house-flippers erstwhile they purchased their caller home

Excited to commencement the project, they weren’t initially enactment disconnected by immoderate issues. ‘It was truly aged and had mice successful the roof,’ Becky explains. ‘There were besides carpets successful the bath and nary entree to the garden.

‘So galore of our friends looked astatine this location and said they wouldn’t person gone adjacent it due to the fact that of however overmuch enactment needed to beryllium done.’

But Becky insists she saw ‘potential’. With their £100,000 budget, they planned to physique a ‘simple’ broadside hold and wholly redecorate the downstairs earlier moving onto the loft space.

Work started connected the physique successful 2022, and the household moved into a abstracted rental property. But costs soon spiralled arsenic the mates admit they hadn’t considered the restrictions that travel with gathering connected the Green Belt.

‘We could person created the bungalow of our dreams if determination weren’t truthful galore rules and regulations,’ she said.

‘We thought we could bash a broadside and backmost hold truthful we could person a bully size bathroom, kitchen, different chamber for the kids, and entree to the garden.

‘But due to the fact that of the Green Belt, determination were truthful galore rules and regulations adjacent down to the benignant of dormer roof, and we weren’t allowed a porch.’

They ended up having to sound the full location down, leaving conscionable 3 walls standing. Unable to spend to wage rent connected a abstracted property, they were forced to unrecorded among the chaos.

They converted the store into a makeshift surviving and room area, slept successful a tiny static caravan, and utilized a Portaloo for 5 months, from August to December.

‘We had to trudge done soil and ungraded to beryllium capable to spell into the store of an evening. It was truthful acold and you couldn’t spot anything, truthful astatine nighttime clip we had to person lights connected our heads,’ she said. 

‘We kept the kids warm, but my hubby and I ended up getting chilblains connected our feet.’

They besides had to sacrifice plentifulness during their renovation. The household didn’t spell connected vacation for 2 years, couldn’t spend dinners retired and had to prevention connected costs by buying materials second-hand and sourcing products connected Facebook Marketplace.

When the location was liveable, they moved in, but Becky says it was inactive a ‘shell’, adding: ‘All they had done is plastered the walls, truthful we had to unrecorded among the builders.’

Becky described the past fewer years arsenic a ‘challenge’ and admits they’ve spent treble their £100,000 budget.

But she adds: ‘To get the location you tendency successful this fiscal climate, what other are you going to do? This is what radical person to bash present to effort and get the spot they want.’

Although she’s ‘happy wherever they are now’, Becky volition person to hold until the caller twelvemonth to prevention up adjacent much wealth to adhd the finishing touches to her home.

Follow Becky and Adam’s advancement connected Instagram @house.of.lane. 

‘I privation we hadn’t bought it’

Cassandra Davis, 34, and her hubby Rikki, 37, besides purchased a 1930s bungalow that they hoped to crook into an idyllic household home.

The spot successful Berkshire was successful a quiescent neighbourhood, with spacious rooms, cleanable for their daughter, past five.

But conscionable a fewer months aft moving successful 2018, Cassandra learnt she was pregnant. ‘We’d been trying for 3 years and had beauteous overmuch fixed up connected having a kid altogether,’ she says.

While it was a blessed surprise, Cassandra admits that it became ‘impossible to renovate astir a newborn’. 

Then, 4 months aft their 2nd girl was born, Covid hit. Any renovation plans the brace had were halted. While Cassandra says it was ‘livable’, she explains they needed a caller bathroom, caller room and caller electrics.

The mates shifted their absorption to decorating to effort and marque the abstraction much ‘homely’, but adjacent then, Cassandra says each task turned into ‘something bigger and unexpected’. She says: ‘Even trying to portion the wallpaper successful the nursery turned into america having to re-plaster the full country first.’

Their boiler broke down twice, determination was an lipid leak, a mains h2o leak, and their cardinal heating powerfulness flushed – a heavy cleaning process which removes dirt, rust and debris from their boiler, pipes and radiators.

So far, they’re down £25,000 – and they haven’t adjacent started the gathering enactment yet. 

‘Nothing is straightforward,’ she says. ‘We’ve been present astir six years and successful hindsight, I privation we hadn’t bought it.

‘We’re surviving successful a location that seems to person a caller occupation each week and we’re perpetually having to bash a speedy hole connected things.’Just past week the brace person had to prosecute a plumber aft the blistery h2o stopped moving successful their bathroom.

With 2 young children, surviving successful the location hasn’t been easy. Cassandra said: ‘I truly felt it the worst erstwhile the heating stopped moving successful January 2021 successful lockdown. It was perfectly freezing and with 2 tiny kids, it was truthful hard to support warm.’ She adds: ‘The fireplace and 1 electrical heater were each we had.’

The brace person been quoted £150,000 for the gathering enactment – which includes removing 3 fireplaces, replacing the roof, adding a broadside hold and removing an existing store and shed. The brace were told they request to ‘completely gut it and commencement again’.

They can’t spend to wage the immense chunk and truthful are presently successful limbo, waiting to get the wealth successful 3 years erstwhile their fixed-rate owe ends.

The enactment itself should instrumentality a twelvemonth to complete, truthful the spot won’t beryllium finished until 2028, a decennary aft they bought it. 

Cassandra said: ‘It’s not the household location that I had pictured and portion we couldn’t person predicted Covid, we’ve had truthful galore setbacks that it feels similar getting the readying support and the funds unneurotic are getting person to a tube imagination than a reality.’

Moving retired isn’t an enactment either. Cassandra explained that spot prices person ‘skyrocketed’ successful their colony and they can’t spend to enactment determination if they sell.

For now, Cassandra’s children are blessed and settled, truthful they’re resigned to enactment there. However, she says: ‘We’re inactive undecided if it’s our everlastingly home.’

‘It’s hard to unbend erstwhile there’s truthful overmuch near to do’

Even tiny spaces tin airs large problems. Jenna Rayner, a 36-year-old selling coordinator from Southampton, bought her doer-upper level successful Eastbourne successful October 2022, spending £186,250. 

She said: ‘I’ve ever been obsessed with renovation and spot shows and had a knack for visualising a space’s potential.’

Jenna explained it was a imagination of hers to renovate her ain place. So, erstwhile she recovered the flat, it felt similar the cleanable accidental to bash so. 

She said: ‘I thought I’d conscionable beryllium stripping wallpaper, patching the walls and repainting erstwhile I moved in.’ But the task turned retired overmuch bigger than she archetypal envisioned. 

She began with an archetypal fund of £15,000, but acold ‘underestimated however overmuch things really cost’ and has present spent implicit £22,000. 

She explained: ‘Once I removed the wallpaper, I discovered the plaster connected each my exterior walls had blown, which I hadn’t expected astatine all.

‘It meant I had to larn however to plasterboard, portion and associated walls, which wasn’t primitively successful the plan.’

One of the biggest challenges for Jenna is surviving successful the renovation itself. ‘It’s hard to unbend erstwhile there’s truthful overmuch near to do,’ she said. 

Since ripping retired her kitchen, for example, she’s spent the past 5 months washing up successful the bath. 

She’s taken connected the bulk of the enactment chiefly by herself and has carried astir 200 ‘heavy’ bags of rubble from the top-floor level down 2 flights of stairs to the skip.

Despite its challenges, Jenna is inactive affirmative astir the renovation and predicts it volition instrumentality different twelvemonth to implicit fully. 

What does she privation she knew earlier she started? She said: ‘It’s going to instrumentality doubly arsenic agelong and outgo astatine slightest treble what you expect. But if you’ve got the determination, it’s worthy it successful the extremity to make a abstraction that’s precisely what you want.’

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