In recent years, Homes & Property has seen plenty of unusual building parts sold off: a £50,000 balcony, for example, or the airspace above a three-storey building in Clapham, which was advertised for £10,000. Now, there’s a new one. A basement in Lewisham — without its own entrance — is being auctioned for £500 later this month.
The 139-square-foot basement is described by Auction House London as a “lower ground floor basement area” with “limited head height”.
Pictures show a tiny space with brick walls and a ceiling too low to allow the average person to stand. There is a single lightbulb, which, along with the camera flash, provides enough light to show the stacked chairs, cardboard boxes and folding bike which the cellar is currently used to store.
Most intriguing of all, though, is the fact that the basement does not have its own entrance. No, it can only be accessed from a staircase inside the building’s ground floor flat. “A separate agreement between the buyer and the flat owner will be required, as there is no external access to the basement,” reads the listing.
Located close to Honor Oak, 190 Stanstead Road is classified as a two-storey mid-terrace property with a three-storey outrigger to the rear. In 2009, planning permission was granted to divide the property into three flats.
However, according to the Land Registry, the basement also has its own title deeds, and the leasehold was last sold for £5,000 in 2020.
The auction listing states that there “may be potential for excavation and development” of the basement area, subject to planning permission, but the property’s owner has already attempted this three times without success.
In 2020, they applied for planning permission to convert the basement into a “two-bedroom, three-person flat”, which would involve excavating the front and rear gardens to create lightwells and an external staircase.
The application, though, was refused on the grounds that “the proposed habitable rooms, by reason of their poor level of outlook and natural light and poor quality and overlooked amenity space, would fail to provide an acceptable standard of accommodation for future occupiers”.
The following year, a new planning application was also rejected, which the owner unsuccessfully attempted to appeal. More detailed plans for the proposed flat specified that it would cover 720 square feet, with a kitchen, lounge, two bedrooms (one single, one double with ensuite) and a shower room. Most of the apartment would have a ceiling height of just 2.3 metres.
Lewisham’s planning inspector repeated concerns that the flat “would not provide acceptable living conditions for future occupiers”, adding that the flat’s owner did not actually own the garden that they planned to excavate.
Other properties on the same road have had similar planning applications refused. Number 180, for example, applied to build a two-bedroom house in the basement and on the land behind the property, which was declined in 2017.
At another property, where such plans were able to go ahead, planning officers said that it was “assessed against a different set of planning policies” and “does not set a precedent”.
Still, for those interested in the basement — perhaps as a difficult-to-access storage space — it will be auctioned online at midday on 17 October by Auction House London, with bids to start at £500.
