Home for sale: ghost included
Don’t be afraid — buying a haunted house could work in your favour
THIS autumn’s movie chiller, The Little Stranger, features a rambling old house, owners with a secret past, unexplained accidents, bloodshed and ghostly goings on.
Staple ingredients of horror, but what if a home has its own history of violence or was the scene of unexplained events? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think.
Take The Cage, a two-bedroom cottage in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, that’s on sale now and claims to be Britain’s most haunted home. The seller of this former medieval witches’ prison, who is revealing the price only to would-be buyers, has even issued a statement about it. The ghost is said to be Ursula Kemp, a former prison inmate who was hanged nearby in 1582.
‘Ursula may haunt The Cage still . . . this property can be set up to be a paranormal business if the new owner desires,’ reads the statement, which appears on Sarah Beeny’s Tepilo online estate agency.
While sceptics may say there’s no scientific proof that Ursula or any ghost exists, there’s no doubt homes that were once the scene of gory accidents or murders are tough to sell even decades later.
‘I once viewed a property and it was obvious the vendor and estate agent were not being open. Then I met a local who told me about the shocking accidental death of the seller’s husband. It involved a garden mower,’ says James Greenwood, of Stacks Property Search, a buying agency.
HIS client was unsettled, but willing to go ahead and Greenwood was able to negotiate a deal. ‘ Competition from other purchasers was lower than expected,’ he admits.
More than a decade ago — before sellers were obliged to reveal more information about a property — buying agent Simon Barnes bought a flat in London’s St John’s Wood for his family.
He made a cheeky £350,000 offer despite the £ 600,000 asking price and, to his amazement, it was accepted. Soon after, he discovered from a builder that an elderly woman had been murdered there.
In today’s age of social media and 24-hour news, there is less chance of a property’s supernatural or murderous past going unnoticed.
Even so, a survey in 2016 for property firm Sell House Fast, found that 44 per cent of buyers would think twice about a purchase if they knew there had been a recent death in the home. Some 36 per cent would call off the deal altogether.
The Sellers Property Information Form, given to existing owners by lawyers when a home goes on the market, obliges the owners to declare problems such as neighbour disputes. Bizarrely, it doesn’t ask for the reason behind a sale, such as a death, suicide or apparent supernatural occurrences.
However, under the 2008 Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, failing to tell a buyer about a major issue is termed a ‘misleading omission’ and could land the agent with a complaint to a property ombudsman or legal action.
‘A death in the house — even a natural one — might be a deterrent to some buyers and the law makes it clear an estate agent must reveal it,’ says Integra Property Services’ Michael Day.
But buyers are not entitled to know if a home appears to be haunted, because there is no proof that ghosts exist.
In 2013, a buyer complained to an ombudsman scheme saying that his non-refundable deposit on a property should be returned to him because he felt a supernatural ‘presence’ in the building.
The ombudsman scheme batted away the claim saying: ‘It would not be possible to investigate if there was a supernatural presence at the time of the viewing.’
So if you’re moving home this autumn, do your research carefully — and that includes finding out about the property’s past.
Much of the mid-century Modern furniture that is fashionable today hails from the husbandand-wife design teams of the 20th century.
Now a new exhibition, Modern couples, at the Barbican celebrates these famous duos. We ask six design couples why their creative partnerships have proved so successful.
TOP-NOTCH FURNITURE
husBaNd and wife team, Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon, set up the high- end furniture design business Pinch from their kitchen table in 2004. after five years working for sir Terence conran, Russell went on to co-found design agency The Nest. he hired Oona, a television producer-turned branding expert, as account manager.
‘It was love at first sight,’ she says. ‘We set up Pinch because we wanted to make furniture people would live their whole lives alongside. We talk about work almost all the time, which our two daughters, aged nine and 11, find incredibly boring. all our ideas come from our domestic life.’
a striking example is their Joyce cabinet (£7,255 plus shipping), with sliding glassfronted doors, pinchdesign.com.
WASTE NOT
dave christian and Jacquelyn cook started their Yorkshire-based business six years ago making furniture from recycled waste wood and other foraged materials. They met via a dating website when dave was a chef living in Nottingham and Jacquelyn worked for a publishing company in Barnsley.
‘he started making gifts for friends and family after his niece found some driftwood on the beach,’ she said.
The first piece they made was a headboard from pallets. The scaffolding Board coffee Table (£400) is a good example of their creations positiveearthfurniture.co.uk.
BRITISH WOOD
seBasTIaN and Brogan cox run a design studio and workshop in Greenwich. They make furniture from British wood, including fallen trees from their clients’ gardens. They started the business in 2010.
‘We’ve always worked together since becoming an item,’ says Brogan.
They are co-directors: sebastian is the maker, miller and designer; while Brogan is in charge of the brand and PR.
‘Brogan has an amazing eye for colour and composition,’ says sebastian. ‘I understand how things should be made.’
Their Bayleaf kitchen table costs £3,800. sebastiancox.co.uk.
WALLFLOWERS
cO-fOuNdeRs of wallpaper design studio custhom, Nathan Philpott and Jemma Ooi, have been together for 11 years. They met at the Royal college of art. They have a studio and shop in Peckham, south London, and launched a new collection of Oblique wallpaper (£145/10 m roll) inspired by seventies Berlin mail art, custhom.co.uk.
WORLDWIDE WONDERS
aLex and ali cooke source and commission artisan homeware, lighting and ceramics from around the world to sell at their shop in devon.
‘Ten years ago we set out on a life-changing adventure. We met talented craftspeople and saw their beautiful work along the way,’ says ali. ‘We jotted a business plan on the back of a paperback.’
The couple have four children, whose names all begin with the letter a — they call themselves the a-team. The couple have pieces from their Nkuku range dotted throughout their home. alex’s favourite is the Odum armchair (£995), nkuku.com.
HEAVY METAL
chRIsTOPheR and Nicola cox met as sculpture students at Wimbledon school of art in the Nineties; Nicola went on to specialise in bronze casting. chris drew on his family’s antique business to become a metalworker, restoring chandeliers. They ditched the day jobs in 2005 to make furniture and lighting using bronze, wrought iron, glass and stone.
The couple, who have an eight-year-old daughter, now have 26 employees at their Tottenham studio and a shop in Belgravia. Their sapling floor Lamp is £2,930 and amber shade £750, coxlondon.com. Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde is on at the Barbican Art Gallery until January 27, 2019, (£16, barbican.org.uk)