Chapter 3
The next morning, things weren’t looking so good for his grand plan.
Noah opened an email that had dropped into his inbox from the firm of surveyors in Somerset while he’d been getting a coffee from the machine in the corner of the office.
Not expecting much more than a standard level two survey, he was brought up short by the email, and then shorter by the attachment.
The survey had detailed several potentially problematic obstacles that Noah and his brothers would need to consider when they put Jack’s cottage on the market.
These included an issue with the electrical wiring, and, more worryingly, the presence of expanding foam insulation in the roof space which had already caused problems with damp timbers.
If the insulation was not removed, the report went on, then the structural integrity of the roof could be compromised.
Sorry, Noah. If you’ve any hope of achieving the market value for the cottage, some serious work is going to have to be done first, or you’ll have to drop the asking price.
Even if you did that, with the roof and its timbers in their current state, I doubt it would be mortgageable by a prospective vendor.
Noah’s heart sank. Shit! That was going to throw the mother of all spanners in the works.
Neither of his brothers would be happy with the delay.
The two choices he had – put the cottage on the market for a low price and hope someone who didn’t need a mortgage snapped it up, or do the re-wiring and hire a contractor to strip out the foam insulation around the timbers – would both be expensive.
He got the feeling that his brothers would baulk at being asked to cough up the money to take out the insulation, but the other choice, risking selling the house for less, wouldn’t sit well with them either.
It seemed, along with Monty, there was yet another complication.
He was also cross that, while his grandfather had kept his paperwork in order on virtually everything, there was no documentation about the cussed spray insulation.
Noah hadn’t looked in the loft on any of his visits to the cottage after Jack’s death, and now he wondered if the company who’d done the job was on the level.
As an estate agent, he well knew the depressing preponderance of shady businesses connected to home improvement and house building, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if, especially in later years when Grandpa wasn’t quite so up with it, Jack had fallen for a cowboy builder’s patter.
Perhaps that was why there was no paperwork to be found, and why Jack hadn’t mentioned he’d had it done.
Noah looked at his watch. He had to check in with Ruby and Violet, his two salespeople, about the viewings they’d conducted yesterday.
There was a friendly competition between them about who could hit their sales targets quickest each quarter, and this time Ruby had pipped Violet to the post. Violet, therefore, had doubled her efforts in July and wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down.
He tried to put the issues with his grandfather’s cottage out of his mind as he went through to the small space that constituted the storefront for Noah Hathaway Estates.
Violet was on a call, and Ruby was getting her things together for another viewing, but she paused when Noah came through.
‘I’ve just got off the phone with a prospective buyer for 15 Cavendish Road. They love it but won’t go the distance on the full price. Do you think the vendors’ll take ten grand off?’
‘Worth a try,’ Noah replied. ‘Cavendish Road’s been on our books longer than anywhere else, so it’s worth shifting, if you can.’
‘I’ll give them a ring this afternoon, when I’m back from the viewing in Rotherhithe Street.’ Ruby smiled. ‘Any plans for the weekend, Boss?’
Noah grimaced. ‘A lot of miles to Somerset and back, but hopefully that won’t be for much longer.’ Noah had been in the office early, and although he’d heard Ruby coming in slightly before eight thirty, she hadn’t disturbed him, so this was the first chance they’d had to catch up.
Ruby gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Your grandpa’s house?’
‘Yup. Some stuff’s come up in the survey that I need to sort out, so I’m heading down there after work.’
‘Well, let me know if you need us to shift anything around – I don’t mind taking over for a couple of days if you have to spend some more time down there.’
‘Thanks.’ Noah smiled at her. ‘Any news on the Henderson place?’
‘Not yet, but I’ll check in with the buyer this afternoon. It would be good to get that one clinched before the end of the month.’
‘I can do that, if you like,’ Violet chipped in, having wound up her phone call. ‘That couple who wanted a second viewing on the flat in Berkeley Place just cancelled, so I’m free.’
‘That’s a shame!’ Ruby said playfully. ‘I guess that’ll put me ahead again…’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Violet replied, grinning. The two were good friends, despite the competition, and relished the chance for banter.
‘Well, let me know what the outcome is with Henderson,’ Noah replied. He enjoyed the office atmosphere with his two salespeople – the business was small, but getting bigger every day, and a large part of that was down to Violet and Ruby.
‘Have you got anything on this afternoon, Boss?’ Ruby asked.
‘Not yet, but I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to chase on a couple of sales from last month, so I’m going to spend it behind my desk.’ Noah gave both women a grin. ‘Hard work, being in charge, you know!’
‘We know!’
‘But I will stretch my legs and grab some lunch first, I think. Can I get either of you anything?’ A walk through the park opposite the office might help to clear his head, Noah thought, and the café at the centre of it did a killer egg mayonnaise on sourdough, if you could get there before they sold out.
At a snip before twelve, he might still be in with a chance.
He shouldn’t be bunking off work, even for lunch, but if he was going to end up stuck in the office for hours afterwards, it was worth it.
He tapped Ruby and Violet’s lunch requests into his phone and started out.
As he walked, he kept turning over the problems with Jack’s cottage again and again.
Joel liked to be presented with solutions rather than problems, so Noah knew he had to come up with something before the three brothers spoke again.
Marc wouldn’t want to be bothered with details when he had so much else on his plate.
Noah didn’t live close enough to Lower Brambleton to supervise the work, and although he could check in remotely, there were always risks involved with being hands off.
And what if, as was so often the case with old places like Jack’s, when the work started, other issues arose?
If the roof timbers were starting to rot, that could easily be a few more thousand on the price of removing the foam. Ditto the electrics.
As Noah walked the neat path through the park, he was sharply reminded of the contrast between London life and life in Lower Brambleton.
He loved London, and always would, but the closely cropped grass in the park, the weedless flowerbeds, the crowds of children all vying to get on the play equipment while their parents sipped lattes and looked at their phones made even this patch of greenery feel crowded.
After his visit to the cottage, shortly after his grandfather’s funeral, he’d begun to realise how much he missed being in the countryside.
It had been a welcome break from school and university in his teens, and then his visits had got shorter and less frequent once he’d started working.
By the time he’d established Noah Hathaway Estates, and all of the endless hours that had entailed, he was beginning to lose touch with what life was like outside the capital.
Being back there had reminded him how much he enjoyed open air and countryside.
It was just as well, he thought with a frown as he revisited the contents of the email from the surveyor.
One way or the other, it looked as though he was going to have to spend a lot more time in Lower Brambleton than he’d initially thought.