Sold, the £1 flat with just one catch ... you can’t get inside
It looks like the bargain of the century – a flat with commanding river views with a sale price of just £1.
But the only catch is there is no way the new owner can get into the tiny property.
It is sited above a passageway and features one 129-square foot room with no stairs to reach it and no door to access it.
the property was put up for sale by the local council in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, which has owned the boarded-up flat since 1966.
there is no record of any previous occupant or user. Nestled between a Chinese takeaway and an insurance office, the town centre flat has a window at the front overlooking the river. the back window is boarded-up.
A photographer on a ladder managed to peer inside and snapped a dingy bare interior with boards and rubble on the floor.
Despite its limitations it was sold by Norfolk-based auctioneers William H Brown. It had an initial guide price of £ 100, but this dropped to £1 at the last minute and a local unnamed businessman snapped it up.
Even the auctioneers were unable to access the flat. When it first went on their books, they described the property as ‘certainly one of the weirdest ones we’ve had’ and admitted it was ‘probably just full of cobwebs’.
It is in a terrace of old buildings, which are believed to have been built as granaries or shops during the 16th century.
Fenland District Council put the flat up for sale alongside other ‘surplus properties’. William H Brown said £1 was the cheapest sale price it had ever seen.
the buyer will have paid far more in fees than the actual price of the property – around £1,000 in total. the auction details stated: ‘this is an opportunity to acquire a flying freehold which extends over part of a vehicular access passageway and comprises a single, currently inaccessible room.’
A ‘flying freehold’ means it has no structure underneath.
It is thought at some point the room may have belonged to the building next door but somehow got separated over time.