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I've just been told I might have an issue in my basement. Thing is I didn't know I had one.
Should I have known, was it up to me to find this out when I bought it?
It's a converted pub, now four freehold houses. My neighbors was sold with a basement that had been renovated as a full time living space.
However two years ago it flooded, and recently it was stripped back to reveal a partially blocked basement under my house.
Is this a case of buyer beware, or should I have been informed of a blocked off basement.
I'll find out what the issue is this Sunday, not lived there myself for over a year.
I'm pretty sure there is a void under my house - there was under all the others being build, and the concrete floor downstairs resonates when you stamp on it. Tempted to drill a hole in the floor and stick a camera down there.
Any bodies down there?
didnt fred west own a pub...
didnt fred west own a pub…
Yeah, but that sold and converted into flats when it closed down.
.
Oh...
Friday.....don't expect any helpful answers on a Friday
You describe a problem, I read an opportunity.
Man cave
Cinema Room
Zwift room
Workshop
Gym
Wine Cellar
Sex Dungeon
Who do you expect would tell you?
Most pubs have a cellar.
Whats the problem?
Though my place is listed in Bedfordshire Ghosts.
Sex Dungeon
Given the OP presumably doesn't have any access to this basement but next door look like they do, might be a bit awkward popping next door in your leather chaps with your todger hanging out and an 8-ball in your mouth mumbling something about getting access to your basement.
this (probably ALL older ones!)Most pubs have a cellar.
Would love a house with a cellar, don't know why, just seems cool. We did view an old house that had one, but it was immediately veto'd unfortunately, due to the proliferation of spiders and ghosts (seriously 🤣).
don’t expect any helpful answers on a Friday
You knows it!
Without access... is it a cellar, or just a void? Has it been "blocked up", or has it never had a door for access? If it wasn't part of the sale, is it yours? A thousand questions open up before you. Get it "completely" sealed off from your neighbours, and checked out for foundation damage.
due to the proliferation of spiders and ghosts (seriously 🤣).
There is a mate of mine has a wife who is originally from Thailand.
When she was selling a house she was asked if it had a ghost, apparently a selling feature!
Basements / cellars are fantastic. Our last house had one, and it was a non negotiable requirement when looking for this house (quite common to have them in our town).
We have a guest bedroom down there, which we usually decant to when it gets hot in the summer.
Bedfordshire ghosts? Anywhere near Clophill Church then? Might be able to relocate them
On a serious note though. You need to build a climbing wall in it
Man cave
Cinema Room
Zwift room
Workshop
Gym
Wine Cellar
Sex Dungeon
All of the above?
Would love a house with a cellar, don’t know why, just seems cool.
Because it literally is! 😉
It's a cellar, not a cavern!
Now that would be epic... Opening up a floor to find a cave system underneath. it would be like "Evolution", but in suburbia.
In a previous job I looked after a large town house converted into student accommodation, when the house was vacated I was given a bunch of keys and told to make good any damage and redecorate.
Unlocked a what I thought was a storage cupboard under the stairs to find a rolladisco in the basement look untouched for years, glitter ball and a crate of cherry-B covered in dust.
My parents house was a pub that's now divided into three houses, the cellar only extends under two of them though so not guaranteed that all houses that are converted from pubs have cellars
Man cave
Cinema Room
Zwift room
Workshop
Gym
Wine Cellar
Sex Dungeon
All of the above?
Isn't that an Attic ??
I looked at a house that had a cave.
It was into sandstone on two side and at the back had a space about a meter and a half as a semi circle that was two stories high.
Mostly it was full of spiders, but it would have been the most amazing climbing wall or wine cellar 🙂
Just because it's under your house doesn't mean it's yours I'm afraid. There's a good chance if it belongs to anyone it belongs to the neighbours who have the (blocked) access door.
It’s a cellar, not a cavern!
Now that would be epic… Opening up a floor to find a cave system underneath.
Why hope to find one - anyone can have a cave system under their house if they want one 🙂
If it's a converted pub, maybe that's where the Boddies have been buried?
So here's a curious thing. My house is two (smallish) terraces converted into one. The basement footprint is just one of those, half of the house. And the adjoining wall is non-matching brick rather than stone. The attic space is the same.
It's only partner disapproval preventing me from digging out a 4lb lump hammer and a cold chisel, I am desperately curious.
On a serious note though. You need to build a climbing wall in it
Have you seen the height of cellars? I'm not excessively tall and I have to duck.
Isn’t that an Attic ??
👏👏 And the crowd goes wild.
Cellars are great, it's like a garage, for bikes, but more secure and your OH won't want to fill it with other bulky stuff because there's stairs, or other stuff because they're always slightly damp.
We have a guest bedroom down there, which we usually decant to when it gets hot in the summer.
I think that's covered by the sex dungeon suggestion?
Just because it’s under your house doesn’t mean it’s yours I’m afraid. There’s a good chance if it belongs to anyone it belongs to the neighbours who have the (blocked) access door.
IANAL but if the neighbours owned it then yours would be listed as a leasehold or flying freehold surely?
Plenty of old houses have doors linking them.
Isn’t that an Attic ??
Well played!
There was a lower flat for sale down here that I really wanted, it covered half the ground floor but had the entire basement area included in the sale. None of it was habitable, presumably because fire regs but you basically got two other houses for free.
In Hackney?
Mole Mans house
I just went looking for that, but got distracted reading an article on the Vogue Magazine website detailing how it has now been turned in to an artist's studio, and you beat me to it.
From his Wikipedia page
"After this, Lyttle was moved to a hotel for three years, before being rehoused in an apartment in a high-rise building. He was put on the top floor, to discourage tunnelling. While there he knocked a hole in a dividing wall between two rooms."
here was a lower flat for sale down here that I really wanted, it covered half the ground floor but had the entire basement area included in the sale. None of it was habitable, presumably because fire regs but you basically got two other houses for free.
I basically bought two flats for the price of one.
We looked at a house for sale in Matlock that literally had a cavern entrance in the garden. Not a small cave, the sort of cavern people go into with helmets, ropes and lights.
The previous owners had allowed some sort of permissive access, which sounded like a legal nightmare to me! 🙂
...also at our old house I accidentally discovered that we had a mostly rubble filled cellar when I broke a floorboard in the space under the stairs. That was pretty cool 🙂
Man cave
Cinema Room
Zwift room
Workshop
Gym
Wine Cellar
Sex Dungeon
He said it flooded, so add indoor pool to the list.
Our house has a cellar. We use it every day and knew about it when we bought it. However it wasn’t until lockdown 1 when we ripped up the hall tiles and @p20 decided to get a screw driver to see what was under the floor boards, did we find out we had a second cellar (or more accurate as posed above ‘a void’) under the front of the house, behind what appears a very solid wall in our current cellar. I’d certainly not expected a surveyor to go ripping up floorboards to check (even though some of the other houses on the street do have known full length cellars - just depends where on the hill you are!).
[strong][/strong] wrote:
Now that would be epic… Opening up a floor to find a cave system underneath. it would be like “Evolution”, but in suburbia.
Happened in Germany when I lived there and was active in the local caving club. While building a garage a cave system was discovered which has become one of the deepest in the area. To enter the cave you have to move the car out of the garage and go down a manhole in the concrete floor. Links shows a plan and second one a picture of it being made secure.
http://www.kahlenstein.de/khvl-pla.htm
http://www.kahlenstein.de/khvl-si.htm
Tory Sex Dungeon
FIFY
I’m no property lawyer but I’d say if you share a piece of building above or below your property with another residence then you should have a leasehold agreement going on and thus it should be something you are ‘aware’ of. It depends whether your conveyancer got copies of the deeds of the other properties as to whether you’d actually see the existence of a basement. Albeit even then I doubt it Would be clear whether your property was above said basement as the plans tend to be 2d for each floor but you could have a guess based on their shape.
I was involved in the Combe Down stone mines project. There was a pub, that had a trapdoor...in the floor of its cellar into the stone mines..
It was reportedly europe's (or maybe) the world's largest consumer of foamed concrete whilst we filled in all the mines under the village.
Isn’t that an Attic ??
👏👏 And the crowd goes wild.
... then they atac.
Little update.
It's like a cavern, so no timbers absolutely no way to access it. I'd have to tunnel down though several feet of ground to get to it.
Looks like next doors cellar shouldn't have been converted to a dwelling space. But that's what they want to do again.
Question is. Should I have to spend thousands on mine when it doesn't effect me at all, and isn't the source of their flooding.
It's 160 year old pub converted, with a history of a flooding cellar. The old high pressure pipes are still there that would have been connected to pumps.
To recap. They have a full height cellar with limited access. And in their cellar is a small bricked up passage into a very small vaulted cellar that sits partially under my house.
Anyway. Spoken to a solicitor and specialist company.
As an aside I don't think I've ever lived in a house that doesn't have a cellar, even in my student days renting.
Current cellar houses my snake collection 🙂
OP You are Rosemarie Fritzl AICMFP.