News21

Earlier Editions…

These earlier archived pages can be excellent for research purposes. Also the unique buildings here that either failed to sell at auction or were initially priced at an “ambitious” level might be ready to come down by a handsome chunk of cash.

This Mill Was Still For Sale Last Time We Looked.

It is lurking in the back copies of Unique Property Bulletin.

We do a lot of the research work. You will need to do a little

Sherlock Holmes rummaging around as well 🙂

So save yourself a small fortune: have a rummage around the older pages here. You could grab yourself a £500,000 bargain for £350,000. We know as we’ve done exactly that: saved 30% by keeping an eye on the unique property that stays unsold for long periods of time. Also you may pick up some free hints. Our website is run by volunteers and is free for all of our friends and colleagues (you) to utilise…

Earlier Update: 24th July 2020

Unique Property Bulletin

Heads-up:

A nuclear bunker in Norfolk is being listed on this website for auction during September 2020.

This was listed from details on our website. We are lucky enough to have several excellent journalists help.

This Bunker was for sale at £17,000 sale: Click Here and here.

It sold for the owner, a retired widow achieving £54,000.

We were delighted to assist and have a heartfelt thanks for the very generous donation this lady made to our not-for-profit website.

Artists picture courtesy of the very talented Gregg Smith

Please check back regularly for full details. We are having photos taken right now and these will be uploaded here in a matter of days.

***********

Earlier Update: 10th June 2020.

For Sale…

Church Lodge, Church Road, Cowes, Isle Of Wight, PO31 8HA

One of our favourite expressions certainly applies to this…

“A neatly arranged pile of bricks that represent a modest challenge for the property renovation enthusiast”.

Aye right. You will needed an advanced degree in architecture and a post-graduate Ph.D in listed buildings. Plus a bank balance in the neighbourhood of Richard Branson. Well in his ballpark before Karma got a hold of Branson’s penchant for threatening the NHS with legal action (here). Anyways, herewith today’s offering for you to consider as your prospective new home.

Church Lodge, Church Road, Cowes, Isle Of Wight, PO31 8HA

Incidentally, we believe that this Church Lodge will sell quickly. Why? It is on an island.

Bizarrely, we have received FOUR times the number of enquires for island based homes since the start of Coviod-19.

We are not totally sur why this should be. Apart from the obvious reason that folk on islands feel safer. I come from a small island and can attest to that. It is like having a great big moat around the place you stay. Though that kind of applies to small private islands with between 5 and 25 folk living on them. Not so much the large islands with 140,000 folk (here) and regular ferries to the mainland!

Church Lodge, Church Road, Cowes, Isle Of Wight, PO31 8HA

Here at Unique Property Bulletin, we have a fondness for the Isle of Wight. Enhanced by the fact our eccentric property club members actually ended up buying the isle of Wight ferry for preservation. A fine old looking thing with beautiful nautical lines (the ferry not the editor)…

The Isle of Wight Ferry: MV Southsea.

(c) McLean & Jones Collection.

Church Lodge, Church Road, Cowes, Isle Of Wight, PO31 8HA

Back In The Day ~ Church Old Lodge.

The Victorians loved to throw open the windows for fresh air.

With good reason, it kept damp and mold at bay as all the overnight (1 litre of water from the lungs) from everyone sleeping in the building was expelled and replaced with dry air. Those Victorian folk knew a thing or two. We just spent well over a hundred thousand pounds renovating a huge building with major damp problems that would not have happened if the habit of opening the windows for 15 to 30 minutes every morning was maintained.

The Old Lodge, Church Road, Cowes, Isle Of Wight, PO31 8HA

Modern day transport has improved since the old MV Southsea + MV Brading and MV Shanklin. Safe distancing needs to be observed aboard al of the isle of Wight ferries in this year of the Coronavirus. We can’t wait for the vaccine and/or (HIV/AIDS style) medicine regimen to take the lethality of the nasty pandemic and get us all to a better place. Soon, you could be sailing on one of these types of ferry to your new home on the Isle of Wight…

Though we still think the old classic we here at Unique Property Bulletin were lucky enough to buy has the best lines. It looks like a proper ship…

Isle of Wight Ferry MV Southsea. A Denny Built Ship.

This Was A Remarkable Shipyard & Had Many Amazing Vessels To Its Name: Click Here. and Here.

Photo Attribution, Mr Pete Robbins

If you are looking to live on an island, ships will soon make their way into your DNA.

A little know fact: The owners of Unique Property Bulletin only stepped in and bought MV Southsea so as to save the vessel from the scrapyard and give the island-based ship preservation society the time and breathing space to sort out their own rescue bid. We managed to keep the vessel away from the scrapyard for the time we owned it and a few years after. Sadly this old faithful ferry ended up being turned into Heinz Beans cans.

But the Isle of Wight ferry rescue experience from our perspective was to prove amazingly helpful when in 2012, another Denny built ship, the TS Queen Mary was faced with the scrapyard. This time we took the lead. An unusual triumvirate: a solicitor, a master mariner and a harbourmaster. Iain Sim, Calum Bryce and Russ McLean established the “Friends of TS Queen Mary Charity”…

So now you know. The Isle of Wight has a direct link in saving the TS Queen Mary. An unusual connection. Had we not gained a great deal of insight into the MV Southsea, then it is likely the grand old ship, TS Queen Mary would have been scrapped.

Thank you Isle of Wight. Thank you M.V. Southsea.

Trustees: Aidan O’Donnell, Russ McLean and Iain Sim.

TS Queen Mary Safe Back On The Clyde In Drydock.

Iain Sim has gone on to raise almost a million pounds and mastermind the ship restoration.

However, we digress. You can, perhaps see how the isle of Wight is close to the hearts of those here at Unique Property Bulletin. If you do by the Church Lodge in Cowes on the island, please consider getting in touch with us.

We have a television company that has asked for candidate properties and the eccentric folk who renovate them to be introduced. Don’t look at any of us here at the Bulletin. We have faces fit only for the radio.

No, you are the next generation and the television companies would love to have a chat. Especially with those who buy neatly arranged piles of bricks for reassembly.

Location of Church Lodge, Church Road, Cowes, Isle Of Wight, PO31 8HA

Further details…

Click Here

Please mention you found this old lodge for renovation in Unique Property Bulletin. Many thanks.

***********

Earlier Update: 8th June 2020.

Please have a read of our petition and hopefully sign it…

Click Here

If the doctors, nurses and ALL who place themselves in harm’s way to help save us from Covid-19 had not stepped up and done their bit, we know for sure at least one of us at this website would no longer be here.

Seriously, one of our lot would not be here if it wasn’t for the NHS and the kind, decent people who turn up day-in, day-out to care for those who are ill.

Our job is to help you find your unique home. This website is free. We do not charge a penny. All we do is volunteer a bit of our time to help you find an unusual home. The NHS and ALL who help do a LOT more. Please help us help them in a small, but hopefully decent way. They do deserve a medal.

Please help make it so.

Click Here

Here at Unique Property Bulletin we don’t ask for money in helping you find your ideal home. But sometimes a couple of minutes and a signature on a petition would mean so much to us. it is one of the few ways we can think of saying thank you in a solid way. Some properties we feature here have up to 186,000 views (here). If just a fraction of those sign our petition to award a medal to those who have placed themselves in harm’s way to save others, then we know this will work. This original petition was established four years ago in respect of the Ebola virus. So many folk got involved that HM Government issued a medal for that pandemic. Surely this Covid-19 is as worthy of the same respect for those who serve.

Thank you.

P.S. PLEASE can you share the petition on you Facebook + Twitter + Instagram pages. That would be hugely appreciated.

Earlier Update: All of May & 30% of June 2020 Lost.

Apologies For An Empty Unique Property Bulletin During The Month of May

Our Computer Imploded

Old Faithful Has Expired.

The Main Unique Property Bulletin Hard-Drive Drove Into The Sunset.

With no access at our main office here at UPB-HQ in Angus, and the backup PC’s on the island of Arran in the west and Noss Head Lighthouse Station in the north inaccessible due to Covid-19 lockdown, it has been a struggle to get back online and update Unique Property Bulletin. Apologies for this.

The brand new Lenovo computer we bought to replace Old Faithful is a piece of carp. The painfully slow data-scavenging Microsoft operating system pre-installed on it should have Bill Gates ashamed of himself. We also pay Bill’s computer geniuses almost £200 every year for three dedicated Microsoft Outlook email addresses. Yet the Microsoft software on this Lenovo craputer BANS use of these as Cortana the robotic troll says the email addresses we pay Mr Gates for are commercial and this computer is domestic. The pre-installed nagging voice robot called Cretin-a didn’t help. Neither was “commercial” and/or “personal” use demarcated on Bill Gates sales literature.

Our Unique Property Bulletin website is a not-for-profit entity run by volunteers. Microsoft have no box to tick for such an entity.

Therefore we need to also apologise if it takes a few days to answer our emails as Bill has locked us out of them. Why we pay him £200 a year for email addresses is a mystery. Does anyone have a clue about Bill’s business model? Charge customers for something that doesn’t work!

I am not a violent man, but Bill Gatews has a smug face you could happily do this to…

#slap-computer-idiot-gates-with-a-fish

Bill Gates has done some pretty amazing things in his life. But the way that his company is going, many of us will swear-off computers for life and go back to telephones and fax machines. Even better, a lot of folk seem to becoming utterly sick of computers and we can suggest several stress-free locations to live where Bill Gates and his internet circus is banned. A lighthouse station for sale is one such candidate (here).

Our apologies for the lack of content on this website for the entire month of May 2020.

Goodness knows we have tried to get back online. Unless you are living in one of the nuclear bunkers or on one of the islands we sell, you will have heard there is a global pandemic. So the lockdown is hampering a new hard-drive being installed into “old faithful”. An Apple operating system. Steve Jobs was not much better than Old Bill, but we could cope with the temperamental idiosyncrasies of an Apple computer.

Microsoft sucks.

Welcome back readers. We shall do our best to help improve an utterly appalling year where we have already lost two friends to that barsteward crappyvirus disease. Perhaps the second half will be a bit better than the first. We certainly hope so.

Keep yourself safe and wash your hands. A lot. In fact, with so many of our readersasking to buy underground bunkers and/or small private islands to get away from the Zombies and Covidiots, maybe we will run a special feature in June with some islands for sale.

Very best wishes,

Russ McLean.

Editor, Unique Property Bulletin.

Unique Property Bulletin – Earlier Update: 22/4/2020.

OAST HOUSE FOR SALE

The Oasthouse, The Street, Plaxtol, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN15 0QG.

The “Listing History” box with the date on it could
save you hundreds of thousands of pounds.

This delightful conversion of a twin oast house located close to London is for sale.

For Full Listing…

Click Here

***********

Unique Property Bulletin – Latest Update: 1/4/2020.

#AfterCovid ~ There Will Be A Demand For Remote Homes!

This Old Mill Ruin Has Planning Permission

It May Suit Going Off-Grid

Watermill features could be incorporated to generate electricity.

Ruin With Planning

Pitscottie Mill, Pitscottie, Cupar, Fife, KY15 5UN

Planning permission for a 4 bedroom detached home. Appears to have lapsed, though there may be an “enduring permission” if building works have been commenced within the (usually) 3 to 5 years from the date permission was granted.

Artists Impression of Rebuild

Pitscottie Mill, Pitscottie, Cupar, Fife, KY15 5UN

Plans can be seen: Here.

Unique Property Bulletin would strongly recommend you look to retaining the company that secured the planning permission as they will have extensive research files and footwork already completed. An astute move would be to contact E. Dalton first. There may be confidentiality issues to start, but the owner should be amenable to providing a letter of comfort to his design company for them to talk with you. If not, then that would set alarm bells off in our book

This site includes approximately 2.96 acres of land.

Architect/Designer’s Drawings…

Newbuild of Pitscottie Mill, Pitscottie, Cupar, Fife, KY15 5UN

Full Planning File Details Online: Here

A couple of observations. Firstly, given the propensity for waterside property to flood with increasing regularity, we would strongly recommend the buyer gets their architect to redesign this rebuild so that all the accommodation is on the first floor and there is simply a garage or some fairly benign empty space on the ground floor in case of flood.

Water Feature At Pitscottie Mill, Pitscottie, Cupar, Fife, KY15 5UN

Second observation: We would highly recommend the new owners look at some form of water generation system so that you can look at going off-grid. Not necessarily the old mill wheel. Though they can be handsome industrial features. More likely a modern micro-generation plant that has a low impact on the building and surrounds. But can generate more than enough for this house and a backup battery system.

Floorplans – In Good Faith But Please Do Not Scale

There is an interesting anomaly with respect to the asking price. Offers around” implies a certain amount of flexibility where the seller may accept below the £110,000 guige.

What intrigues us here at Unique Property Bulletin is that a quick online search reveals the title number to come back at £500,000 (click here). Most likely some plots have already been distilled from the head title and you are buying the rump. From the title plan the seller refers to, that “rump” is quite a nice lump of land…

Title Deed Excerpt: Pitscottie Mill, Pitscottie, Cupar, Fife, KY15 5UN

Interesting one in the circumstances and with many fold just experiencing what quarantine/lock-down feels like, we reckon there will be a significant number of folk looking to move away from the 80 terraced houses and find a sanctuary in a remote area where they can at least wander around the several acres they own.

#AfterCovid will likely become a growing feature once this nasty bug has run its course.

In other words, houses that are remote and where you can telecommute whilst enjoying a good quality lifestyle and some enhanced comforts if/when there is another pandemic will figure in the emotional and psychological scars most of us will have from Covid-19.

Guide: Offers “Around” £110,000. Get Your Haggling-Hat On.

Further details for Pitscottie Mill Building Plot, please…

Click Here

A Friend Emerges From Coronavirus

It is reassuring to see folk you know to survive this vile virus.

Stuart even has his sense of humour intact…

The Editor of This Website Is Often Called “Nail” By His Friends.

It goes back to the 1980s when the term “Russ T. Nail” got shortened!

Unique Property Bulletin – Latest Update: 31/3/2020.

JOB VACANCIES THAT SUIT WORKING FROM HOME

Has self-isolating driven you up the walls yet…

There are far nicer ways to self-isolate AND work from home.

Also earn some cash whilst you are stuck in the house (click here)

Unique Property Bulletin – Latest Update: 30/3/2020.

Should Rightmove plc Donate £5,000,000 of Their Profits

To A LIVELIHOOD Protecting Charity?

A serious question. We would be happy to donate, but would Rightmove plc?

I just lost the plot a bit with Rightmove plc on social media with their poor timing and frankly ill-judged estate agency efforts to flog off overpriced real-estate in a time when doctors and emergency workers are fighting the worst pandemic in 101 years trying their best to save everyone (including estate agents). Rightmove plc are punting this admittedly nice looking home (here) for an abominable £4,750,000 and it got me thinking. Life after Covid-19 will be different. It is likely that over 95% of folk will survive. But over 31% will lose their jobs or take a serious drop in income.

After the LIVES have been saved, there will need to be a concerted effort to save LIVELIHOODS. So if you agree with me on this, please let me know how you feel?

Even if you send just a simple text. If I get a decent level of interest that I can then show to our MP., I WILL register a charity to help protect LIVELIHOODS and our group of six volunteers here at Unique Property Bulletin shall be knocking on the door of Rightmove plc.

A simple text, probably no cost if you are on the usual texting contract. This is my mobile number, nothing fancy and NO premium rates. This website is a not-for-profit blog and we don’t work that way. We help friends find interesting places to live. We do NOT charge commission and we are NOT an estate agency.

If you agree with me that there SHOULD be a registered charity established to protect LIVELIHOODS then please…

TEXT the simple message: “YESJOBS” & Your “NAME” to me at 0749-597-5784

A heartfelt thank you to those Unique Property Bulletin readers ~ and our new visitors, for considering this.

Sincerely,

Russ McLean

Russ McLean. Editor of Unique Property Bulletin.

With lady friends to the right of the photo.

Unique Property Bulletin – Latest Update: 25/3/2020.