Episode 2 Britain's Empty Homes Revisited

Over the years, Britain's Empty Homes has been on a mission

to show what can be done to revitalise and transform

some of the UK's estimated one million empty properties.

Alison, hello. How are you?

In this series, I'll be catching up with some of the people

who took the plunge and staked everything on turning unloved houses

into bespoke family homes.

Today, I'll be catching up with a couple from an earlier series

who made the brave move of taking on one of Britain's empty properties.

I'll be seeing how far they've got with creating their dream home.

It's remarkable. This is the wow factor you were talking about.

It is.

We'll also be visiting some of the derelict dwellings

our property detectives have been working hard to save.

-This is the house.

-This is the house, yeah.

I've been looking forward to this. I've seen it a lot worse than this.

It certainly looks a lot different.

And we'll also be finding out if a group of local residents

has managed to save a vacant Jacobean mansion from certain ruin.

18 months ago on a warmer day than this

I met Karen Dimmock and Jeremy Wilson who had just taken on

a run-down three-bedroom terraced house in serious need of some TLC.

They'd gambled by taking on an empty home

in order to try and secure the right education for their children,

but had they bitten off more than they could chew?

When Karen and Jeremy bought this house

in Hampton Hill, Richmond-Upon-Thames,

it had been lying empty for four months.

It's damp, it's old and needs an awful lot of tender loving care.

Their oldest son Luke had been offered a place at a local school.

We had to make the decision between having a much nicer house

and educating them, and in the end we decided that education

was more of a priority for us.

To afford a house in this affluent area,

their only choice was to take on a wreck.

So they bought their Victorian terrace for £369,000.

It was their first renovation and they had a build budget of £100,000,

but soon after they'd purchased the property,

they uncovered some serious structural problems.

We knew there were issues but not quite the scale of the issues.

Everything has to be done. Garden, every room in the house.

Every surface needs some kind of attention.

I'm slightly terrified that we'll run out of money, if I'm honest,

and not be able to get to the result.

Hi, guys, I'm Joe. Jeremy? Hello, Karen. How are you doing?

-Very well, thanks.

-Good. This is your new place.

First of all, why here? Why did you choose this house?

The location, really. We wanted to be close to our son's school

and we didn't want him to live a commuter lifestyle.

Although it was much cheaper than anywhere else we looked,

we'd have the budget to do what we wanted.

Very exciting plans. Shall we have a look inside?

The structural problems here were so serious that Karen and Jeremy

hadn't been able to move in with their family.

Clearly, you've come in and decided to get started by stripping

-everything back, have you?

-Absolutely.

The wallpaper here was 1950s Anaglypta with a thin underlay

of polystyrene which actually was keeping damp in.

It was actually sweating the house and they had

replacement double-glazed windows and in a Victorian house

-it doesn't allow it to breathe.

-We brought the surveyor in

and he held his damp meter up on to this chimney breast and went,

"I've never seen my damp meter go off the scale before"

That was the scary moment when we thought,

-"What have we done here?"

-He could just tell it was almost saturated.

-It was much worse than the original survey.

-That's one surprise.

Anything else not come through on the survey?

We've got a 30mm drop from one corner of the room to the other.

You can see it, can't you? Standing here, it seems to slope down

-towards that corner.

-We were aware of that. It's obvious

when you walk in the door that there's subsidence but I think

we thought we'll be able to unpin, make this good relatively easily.

Karen and Jeremy have a dilemma on their hands.

Ideally, they wanted to build a loft extension

but that would entail huge structural changes.

In order to get the loft in there, we'd have to put structural steels

in this wall and another steel across here.

-OK.

-All of which adds hugely to the cost of any conversion.

We thought we had a healthy budget

which was why we took the house on in the first place.

It was far and away the cheapest property we looked at

and we figured if we had enough money to spend, we could

make it good, but it increasingly looks as though the money

we've put aside isn't going to be enough.

-It comes back to budget again.

-It does. You look at a house like this

and think of course we can do a loft conversion.

There's loads of Victorian properties with loft conversions,

but this particular property with its structural issues,

-it's much more complex.

-You're good at geeing each other up?

-We'll have to be.

-I'm a perpetual optimist

and Karen's a perpetual pessimist.

-Shall we head back downstairs?

-Let's go.

On a positive note, the couple had already obtained

planning permission to extend the kitchen.

This is going to be the wow-factor room.

We are going to take down these two walls

and extend out into the side-return.

We're also going to go four metres out into the back garden

and have a wall of conservatory-style windows.

Obviously, it's a classic use of space in a Victorian terrace.

Enlarging the footprint. You'll have

a great kitchen here and you're blessed with

all that light coming in being south-facing. That's brilliant.

Later we'll see what happened when I sent Karen and Jeremy

to meet a local couple who had faced similar setbacks,

yet managed to realise their dream of a state-of-the-art family home.

Did you have any surprises that you uncovered?

There were surprises, as there always are

when you are working on a project of this nature within existing house.

Across Britain there are many houses, like Karen and Jeremy's,

just waiting to be rediscovered and brought back to life.

Now, local council empty property offices carry out detective

work round-the-clock, tracking down the owners of abandoned homes

in a bid to tackle our chronic housing shortage.

Just over a year ago we met Enfield empty property officer David Carter.

He was checking up on houses that had been vacant for two years.

The current owner has called me and said, look, I need some help

trying to get this house back into use,

so I need to do a quick survey, see if it is eligible for a grant

from the council and then I can talk to him

about options for getting his house back into use as soon as possible.

In the past, the house had fallen prey to squatters and was now

boarded up and they've needed to get inside and assess the damage.

Oh, right, yes. Now, this...

Straightaway this stands out to me as being a bit of a suspicion.

A lot of the Artex, sort of, before 1990 was known to contain asbestos.

This certainly looks pre-1990 and I'm going to have to get it checked.

It's not a good start before I'd even got into the main part of the house.

And the squatters had left the house in a terrible state.

This fuse box has been tampered with.

We've got wires have been sliced and fuses that have been missed.

We are going to have to get the whole electrics checked out.

It wasn't just the electrics that were cause for concern.

Boiler looks like it's got some kind of "do not use,"

so I'm sure that any gas safety engineer that comes in here

is going to condemn that.

The garden itself is evidence of the squatters.

There's even a disabled buggy out there.

It's all going to have to be cleared out.

It's going to have to be re-lawned as well out there.

Just a bit of a mess all round.

I'll go back, a pair of schedule of works for the owner,

speak to him about getting the house back into use as soon as possible

and we can get the house loved again.

It was a neighbour who alerted the council to the squatters

and Dave wanted to give them an update.

I believe you've had quite a few years of problems.

Yeah, it must be at least three years.

We had squatters in for about seven months

and there was about 20 of them in there. It was...

You know, it was an absolute nightmare.

Hopefully, I'm in touch with the owner now.

He seems like he's got a plan for the house.

I think we are going to be able to help him out with a grant.

So thanks for bringing it to my attention

-I'm glad I've been able to help you.

-No, that's fine.

-All right then.

-Thanks for all your help.

-Bye-bye, then.

Today, a year later, Dave's come back to visit the property,

which has now been sold to new owners.

He is keen to meet them and see what changes have been made.

Mr Osmond. Very nice to meet you. Mr Carter.

-Hello, nice to meet you.

-How are you doing?

-Fine, thank you.

-So, this is the house.

-This is the house, yes.

-I've been looking forward to this.

I've seen it a lot worse than this. It certainly looks a lot different.

Yes, a lot, a lot, yeah.

-Do you want to lead the way?

-Yes, OK. Come in.

And inside, this once dilapidated building

has been completely transformed.

Oh.

Well, that's a big difference, isn't it?

The staircase is the first thing.

It was there, it was round the other side.

And there was that horrible little passageway

with the Artex that we were worried about, with the asbestos.

You've done a great job in here.

An extension's been put in to make way for a fitted kitchen.

Yes, you've done a very good job in here.

The overall impression is one of space,

whereas before it was all very crammed in

and there was that boiler, which was condemned.

Upstairs has all been finished to a high standard.

-Yeah, it's a good size.

-Yes, double.

-Well, thank you very much for showing me around.

-You're welcome.

You really have changed this house for the better.

It was a really troublesome house from me.

This house is now in tip-top condition

and bringing it back from the brink

has had a positive effect on the community,

especially the next-door neighbours.

Since this new build has took over,

he's really done up the property.

I've had a look around inside and it is absolutely beautiful.

It's a job well done by Dave and his team in Enfield.

Good news not just for the owner but for everyone who lives nearby.

Bringing an end to property back to life may be a worthwhile pursuit,

but let's face it - it's never going to be easy.

However, when you speak to people who've been through it

they'll tell you the hard slog, the long hours,

the late nights, are all worth it in the end.

Robin and Isabel Edwards bought a grade 2 listed

Georgian farmhouse in Axbridge, Somerset,

in the hope of creating a cosy home with enough space

to entertain their expanding family and large circle of friends.

I used to cycle past this house on my way to work every day.

We'd been looking for two years

and this one came up on the market.

I recognised it as the house I cycled past and came to look around.

You had to climb up a ladder into this room that we're in now,

into the hayloft.

I turned round and looked at the view from out of these windows

which is to the Mendips and it just made me burst into tears.

I called Robin on my mobile and said, "I've found the house!

"You've got to buy this house!"

The couple paid £316,000 for the dilapidated building

which had been empty for four years and needed complete renovation.

There was a huge amount of work to do from top to bottom.

The rising damp was drowning the woodworm. It was that sort of house.

We devoted our life to doing this project.

We were virtually here every day.

We didn't go on holiday for ten months, a year.

They knew they were taking on a massive challenge, but Robin

and Isobel were convinced they had found the right home for them.

We wanted a renovation that we could stamp our own identity on the house.

There was no point in buying a house which was all up together

and then ripping out a perfectly good kitchen.

We had a party when we first bought the house

and we had all our friends round for dinner.

They all thought we were completely mad.

For Robin and Isobel, buying an empty house meant

they had a blank space into which they could incorporate some

of the important artefacts they'd collected throughout their life.

At the previous house, we found two stained glass windows

in the garden, and we used one in the house we had in Berkeley,

and we've kept this stained glass under a bed for 30 years.

We've incorporated it into the lounge door

and it really seems to fit there.

People say, "How nice that you've kept that old door."

That's great, because they think it's an old door and it's not.

-It's new.

-It's lovely stained glass, it's absolutely beautiful.

They spent £230,000 renovating the farmhouse

and did a huge amount of research

into the traditional techniques and materials

to restore it to its former glory.

Ten months after they began work, the renovation was complete.

When finally they took down the scaffolding around the house,

so many people came up and said, "Excuse me, is this your house?

"We love it. We love the colour and what you've done with this house."

There is this feeling that we've restored what was once

a lovely house and the renovation's brought it back to life again.

This is perhaps something that we'll pass on to the next generation.

Here is a wonderful house and we had a part in saving it.

It's a good feeling.

Earlier in the programme, we met Karen and Jeremy Wilson

who had bought this run-down terraced house

only to discover some serious structural problems.

To inspire Karen and Jeremy, I sent them to seek Tara and Guy Morgan,

a couple who had to find some clever ways to overcome

some similar problems in order to create their dream home.

Guy and Tara Morgan-Harris

bought this three-bedroom 1980s detached terrace house back in 2008.

We were both really happy as soon as we stepped in.

Even though it looked terrible, we were just happy.

The couple dreamed of living in this cosy area near Twickenham Green

but all the homes they looked at were out of their price range.

My parents live very close by, on the green.

It had everything we were looking for.

And also it felt right in the sense of

loads of open space for the family.

There's no way we could have done this if we hadn't bought it as it was.

We were very lucky to find this house.

They spotted the outdated 1980s house and undeterred,

instantly saw the potential that others had missed.

Guy and Tara are both architects

so were prepared for what was in store,

but even the professionals got flustered by the trials of renovation.

You're expecting a baby, hormones flying everywhere,

all you want is your home finished.

They now have a stunning family home with four bedrooms,

a ground-floor extension and a separate office area in the garden.

They feel all their hard work has been worthwhile.

When you walked in,

did you have a vision for what you could do with this place?

The front elevation was a complete facelift.

We wanted something that would bring as much light in as possible and not be too...

Out of keeping.

I'm surprised by how new the property was

because, walking down the street,

I'd assumed it was another Victorian facade.

We've changed it a lot from what it was.

Did you uncover any surprises when you took a look at the fabric of the building underneath?

There were surprises,

there always are when you're working with an existing house.

For us, the main one was the joists upstairs

on the first and second floors

weren't where we thought they'd be or hoped they'd be,

and you can never tell until you pull it apart and find out.

Like Karen and Jeremy, Tara and Guy discovered that the existing

first floor joists weren't strong enough to take the extra load

required for a loft extension.

We're thinking about doing a loft conversion but it's the structural issues which are making us consider

whether it's going to be worthwhile doing the project,

because it is costing such a lot to add one extra room.

It's better to get the structure right.

You can do the nice things over the years ahead.

Getting the structure right first is vital

as it can save you time and money later on.

It's really good if you know a contractor

or have friends or family that have used someone and can recommend them.

That's always the ideal scenario.

If you can't, a lot of it is to do with your gut instinct.

Guy and Tara extended the ground floor to enlarge the footprint

and create a light and airy living space.

One of the main design concepts was to open everything up

as much as we can and to achieve that, we put in these sliding doors.

They're quite straightforward, really.

Gosh. That's great, isn't it?

This is very similar to what we want to achieve

with having a completely glass wall

on the back of the property.

Ours would be slightly more traditional

and more like a conservatory, but I love the idea

that you've got inside, outside living

and you can have your dining room table out there, in there,

while you're having a barbecue here.

It's great. Really lovely.

-Would you like to come upstairs?

-Love to.

-Thank you.

-After you.

-Thank you.

This is the floor we created from scratch.

This is all basically brand new.

The roof wasn't here before so this has given us

an extra two double bedrooms and a bathroom.

Thanks to their remodelling,

Guy and Tara have a total of five bedrooms,

plenty of room for the whole family.

Do you think it's worth it, taking off the roof, doing the rooms?

Do you think we should go with reinforcing the house

just so we can create one room?

Doing this part first, getting the main body of the house together, it's got to be worth it.

Finances aside, it will give you the house you need

and the house you're really looking forward to having. Absolutely.

Later on I'll catch up with Karen and Jeremy

to see if they've put all they've learnt into practice

and successfully renovated their new home.

Throughout the country there are derelict buildings

just waiting to be turned into beautiful homes.

Even the grandest mansion can fall into rack and ruin.

Last year I went to north-west Lancashire to see a stately home

that was on the brink of collapse.

Bank Hall is a part Jacobean mansion originally built in the 1600s

and extended during the 19th century.

Various titled families lived in this imposing building

during its heyday. But vacant since the 1970s,

it's been on a downward spiral ever since.

However, more recently,

the fortunes of this grand old building have changed for the better

thanks to an organised group of local people who are determined

to bring it back in from the cold and put it to good use.

I came here to meet Janet Edwards, chair of the Bank Hall action group.

How is it it's got to this state?

Well, it's got into this state because it's a massive building

and there's limited use for a building of this nature

in the 21st century, so it's finding alternative uses

for these old buildings, and I think that's been the big challenge.

The campaign group have come up with a plan to save Bank Hall

by dividing it into a series of apartments,

but with a number of agencies,

including the local council and English Heritage, involved,

getting the process started was proving difficult.

How urgent is this? Is this deteriorating day by day?

It looks like it should be, because there's no roof, there's no windows.

No, it's desperate now. Buildings aren't static.

They do evolve over the years,

and although it would be lovely to wrap it in mothballs

and take it back to a previous time, that's not going to happen.

So it will be a building that's changed, but I still think

there's beauty in what we'll have when it is finally restored.

Today, one year later,

Bank Hall is still looking derelict and abandoned.

But a restoration project on this large scale

was never going to be easy.

Things take time because, you know,

there are lots of people involved in the process for saving Bank Hall

and everyone has to agree and be confident that the scheme

that's been approved to develop the hall is one that will work.

But Janet and her action group have come a step closer

to saving their beloved building.

Plans to turn this Jacobean mansion into 23 new homes

have been drawn up and are now close to being approved.

The clock tower.

There will be areas where the public can have access to

and this can be used for a whole variety of public activities.

Construction is pencilled to start in the near future.

The clock starts ticking.

We really cannot afford to let the planning consent lapse.

There've been so many setbacks, perhaps, along the way,

but I suppose if I take a deep breath and think about it, yeah,

I think it's going to happen this year.

Whether it's a mansion or a maisonette,

doing up an old property requires patience and determination.

I first met Karen and Jeremy Wilson a year and a half ago.

They bought their derelict home in an affluent part of London

so they could be close to their son's new school.

Despite structural problems,

the couple had ambitious plans for the property.

Well, 18 months after my first visit, here I am back in Twickenham

and I've got a good feeling about this one.

I'm really keen to see how Karen and Jeremy have got on

with turning their once-neglected property

into their dream family home.

-Jeremy.

-Good to see you again.

-Karen.

-Hi.

-Good to see you.

-How are you both?

-Very well, thanks.

-Excellent.

This is looking incredible from the outside. It really has changed.

-It has, hasn't it?

-Has it finished on the inside as well?

-Pretty much, yeah.

-So exciting. Can I have a look?

-Yeah, come on in.

-Wow.

-Do you like it?

-Hasn't this changed?

-Bit different, isn't it?

-This is amazing.

First of all, I'm just try to remember what it was like before.

-There wasn't doors here, were there?

-No.

-So, you've sort of knocked through.

-Yes.

And you have just made this so homely and so brilliant.

It is completely finished.

We didn't have any period features here at all,

if you remember the fireplace - there was really nothing there.

Just a few bricks, wasn't it?

That's right, so we got a fireplace off eBay and had it restored

and even the tiles there in the hall, I don't know if you remember,

it was just floorboards, so we bought black and white

Victorian tiles to pretend that it had always been like that.

But you wouldn't know.

The character and the heart of the place is just so spot-on

to what it would have been originally,

but it's still warm and cosy.

You haven't sacrificed the family feel to it.

Well, we wanted a period house, and unfortunately we couldn't find one.

-So we've made one instead!

-Amazing.

And in terms of affording it, you've sourced the materials yourself,

you've gone for bargains here and there?

Yeah, yeah. We've become very, very wise

to where you can get things for a quarter of the price.

-I've even done my bit of skip diving, it has to be said.

-Really?

-Yep.

But that's what makes these projects work.

That's the difference between completing or not isn't it, sometimes?

We had to get clever because we had to spend such a lot of money

on unexpected structural problems,

and in the end you think, the nice part of the project

where you want to spend the money is where we didn't have that much left.

Which I think you see, yeah.

Unexpected structural problems you said there.

That gives me a hint of what we might talk about next.

Shall we go upstairs, because that's where you were facing a few dilemmas, weren't you?

-That's right. Come with me.

-After you.

Wow. What a snug little bedroom.

You did have lots of issues. You were going to have to reinforce the house

and the plan was to go up into the loft.

You were seeking advice about it, mulling it over. What's happened?

-Well, it ended up being far too expensive.

-Really?

We took advice as to how much it was going to cost to put the steel in

and we just couldn't justify doing it on the basis that it

would be a room that we'd use maybe three or four times a year.

Now, looking out the window I can see another big change

-cos that roof definitely wasn't there before, was it?

-That's right.

-That's the kitchen extension.

-That's the kitchen extension.

-Come and have a look.

-OK.

-A little bit different?

-Beyond belief.

You have completely, completely done it, haven't you?

It's remarkable. This is the wow factor you were talking about.

It is. We just wanted a room where we would spend most of our time,

cos it's blatantly obvious that most people now

spend their time in the kitchen, in the dining room, hanging out,

-and we just live in this room.

-And if we just look outside,

I can see that you've extended the house, but you still have

a really good sized garden and a patch of grass there for the boys to play.

That's right. It's not a huge garden,

but it's big enough for them to play in if they want to.

What was the cost then? How on budget were you?

Was it about 100,000 was the actual overall budget for the project, wasn't it?

It was. We went about 10% to 15% over.

That sounds pretty good.

That includes things like the fireplace, so that's not too bad.

-Wow.

-That's everything, all up.

And you are going to enjoy this as a home now,

and it's a brilliant cosy home, but in the bigger picture,

you've also put this house back in the community and society

and after you other people will come and live here.

It is a great home for many generations to come, so well done.

I'm so impressed and huge congratulations.

I'm overwhelmed by what Karen and Jeremy have been able to do here.

It is so nice to see a project finished with such style and quality

and now lived in as a really warm, cosy family home,

and when you think of the challenges they were facing -

structural problems and damp, they've really had all the big issues to contend with

and they've done really well, they've come through them all,

so this should be pure inspiration for anyone out there

seeking to take on and renovate one of Britain's empty homes.

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