Accountant Jorge Morley-Smith, 50, and his partner, Carin Söderberg, had spent 13 years living with their two children in a three-bedroom townhouse in a cul de sac in Sevenoaks.
They had a life they loved, but there was one issue.
“We wanted a bigger house,” says Jorge. “As soon as you have two children, somebody ends up with the smallest bedroom. That was always one of the biggest frustrations.”
The couple bought their 1970s, 1,290 sq ft house in 2011 and paid £375,000, but their children – Elliot and Elsa – had become teenagers and the third bedroom, a box room, felt very small now they were older.
The family also found that, with working from home more common, they needed a dedicated home office – and they wanted a spacious kitchen and dining area that everyone could congregate in, instead of separate rooms.
“We started looking at other properties in Sevenoaks before Covid but, when the pandemic came, prices kept going up,” says Jorge.
“We felt like the market was running away from us and our budget was getting smaller; we didn’t think we could afford what was needed and a few places we were interested in even went to sealed bids.”
When one of their older neighbours sadly passed away in 2022, the couple decided that, instead of stretching their finances, they’d stay living in the cul de sac they loved but create a house that worked for them.
They approached their late neighbour’s family about buying her property off-market. “This house was an identical house to ours, the same build and footprint,” says Jorge.
“But it was on a corner plot and had a bigger garden that allowed for an extension.”
They agreed a price of £625,000 and paid £42,000 in stamp duty, including £20,000 in additional “second home” stamp duty, as the plan was to keep their previous property to live in while they renovated the new one. Their property purchase and the renovations were all funded by releasing the equity they had in their previous home.
It took a year to arrange an architect and get the necessary planning permission. They chose architect James Dale partly because of his experience in working with similar 1970s homes.
The build started in June 2023 and was finished in May 2024.
“The original budget was £200,000 but what we spent was a very different amount,” says Jorge.
“We comfortably exceeded this budget, largely because we ended up completely gutting the old house and doing an all-house refurb, rather than just the extension,” he said.
He is unsure about how much over this £200,000 budget they went but estimates it’s into the six figures.
“It was a great thing to do, but the build was stressful, as we had maxed out our lending and were perilously close to running out of money,” he says. “We were maintaining two houses and a build. We also had a couple of buyers pull out of the house we were selling. We had to take everything month by month. We were constantly trying to work out how far our money would stretch.”
The house after the renovation (Photo: Juliet Murphy)The renovation saw the new house gutted internally and a timber-framed extension built.
“The main challenge was that we wanted the ground floor to be the heart of the house with a kitchen, so we had to dig out the existing ground-floor garage and add in insulation. The house now has three good-sized bedrooms, an office and a snug, so five bedrooms in total,” says Jorge.
As well as more bedroom space, their new home has an open-plan kitchen, pantry, dining and seating area that opens directly onto the rear terrace, and is 540 sq ft bigger than their previous home.
Alongside managing the build, Jorge taught himself new practical skills, including carpentry, fitting joinery and installing the kitchen, while Carin took responsibility for decorating, allowing the couple to stretch their budget further.
The couple’s new house before the refurbishment (Photo: Juliet Murphy)Once the family had moved in, they were able to sell their previous home and HMRC refunded them £20,000 of stamp duty as they had sold the old house within three years of the new home purchase.
“Even if we’d spent the equivalent money on a different house, this house has been built to our specifications,” says Jorge. “We would struggle to find anything under £1.5m that would satisfy our lives, but this does.”
He doesn’t know what his renovated home is worth now but has no regrets.
The couple in their new home (Photo: Juliet Murphy)“I am fairly clear that we won’t recover the money we put into it, as the value of these types of houses is known and there is a ceiling price on them,” he says. “We haven’t done it for the investment; the architect would tell us, ‘Is this something that you are doing to make money or are you building something you love?’” The latter is definitely the case.
“We haven’t had to compromise,” Jorge says. “Everything was designed around our lifestyle. The plan was always for this to be our forever home, and that’s exactly what it is.”
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