A contact of mine purchased a place of worship classified under usage F. It was in North West London. Not a particularly attractive building, two stories, with no outside space, bar a couple of car parking spots, in a not so attractive location, a residential road with limited street parking.
The property failed to sell at auction, for the nth time. It was a receivership sale, hence the receivers were likely getting more and more desperate.
He purchased the property for £750K, not having a plan, or knowing exactly what he was going to do with the building; it was just that it seemed a lot of square foot (at nearly 4,500) for the amount he was paying, so he took a punt.
On visiting the property he came across the previous owner, a Christian Pastor, who was understandably furious at having lost his place of worship, and likely livelihood. He went so far as to occupy the building, and then proceed to file a claim with the land registry.
I advised my contact to enter the building, when vacant, and take possession, by leaving a guardian in the property, thereby short circuiting a lengthy and expensive legal process. This was executed and the building was secured. However, the legal challenge which was lodged with the land registry remained. Surprisingly, this was accepted as a potential valid claim. Therefore, this had to go through due legal process to be resolved. This issue had implications in regards to the funding element of the purchase, the lender could not get a clean title to lend upon, which had a severe impact on the buyer.
In the interim, several religious groups approached him to purchase the site. Various denominations, from Christians to Muslims, all were desperate to purchase a site, money was not an issue. By playing one against the other, the price started rising higher and higher.
Though these religious organisations were flush with funds, they were unable to gear up to purchase the property under an auction contract. They presumably needed more time to line themselves up. They probably operate by committee as well as having the compliance of being a charity. These hurdles prevented them from purchasing the site via auction.
By playing one against the other he managed to achieve a sales price of £1.7M. As the legal issue was still on going the deal was structured so that the incoming purchaser would rent the property and when the issue had been resolved, the sale would be executed.
It transpired the incoming purchasers were an Indonesian Muslim organisation. Coincidentally, I happened to have close connections with members in this organisation.
Overall, this was a very interesting experience for the buyer; a lot of learning and some major speed humps – but nothing ventured nothing gained.
This has inspired him to purchase another place of worship, which we are in the midst of securing for him. Hopefully this time without the unnecessary legal issue.
