"We found the house on-line, contacted Belgarum by phone and were given one of the first available appointments a couple of days later. One of the agent's staff showed us around but gave us enough "space" to view at our own pace.
We knew that we liked the area, the size of the garden and the orientation of the plot. The issue was whether potential could be turned into practice. We spoke to the neighbours and they were very welcoming and understanding that the house needed complete updating.
The house was being sold for the first time in over sixty years and in our opinion needed significant remodeling as well as refurbishment. I worked up some plans over the next couple of days to show what the "new" house would be like. We met the MD of the estate agents in his office,
considered the suitability of our ideas and reviewed the local market in depth and at length. The result was a rough guide value for what our remodeled house would be worth - subject to the usual uncertainties of the market and the character/quality of our final offering.
Within a week of the first viewing, the vendors decided they wanted the sale wrapped up almost instantly and we were advised that verbal offers had to be received by the end of the day. We had an interesting afternoon putting figures together a little sooner than expected before we telephoned our offer to Paul Stephens. He called back about an hour later, after the end of normal office hours, to say that we had been successful.
The house was taken off the website as soon as we had provided our details. Harriet kept in touch to ensure that the sale kept moving along smoothly. We needed to make a couple of visits to the house to measure up and show our grown up daughters what we were doing. Belgarum had to accompany us as the house was empty but they happily worked around our diaries.
We completed in what seemed like record time and without a hitch.
Overall, Belgarum were great to deal with; friendly but professional. We got the feeling that they were in business for the long term and cared about their reputation and cared equally about their buyers and vendors.
We have now bought and sold through Belgarum. We will have a house to sell once the new one has been remodeled so expect to be talking to them again fairly soon. That should indicate our confidence in their abilities and character."
