Old Roar Gill Property to be Auctioned without Reserve
A detached four-bedroomed extensively modernised property in St Leonards, 24 Foxcote, is to be auctioned next week with a nil reserve price. The reason: it has been languishing vacant for the past two and a half years under a No Occupation order issued by Hastings Borough Council (HBC) following a major landslip into the Old Roar Gill stream that runs at the bottom of its garden.
The landslip in February 2024 undermined a swimming pool in the garden but also left the house assessed by borough engineers as structurally unsafe.
The sellers, who had bought it in December 2020 for £465,000 and committed substantial financial investment into improvements before the disaster, joined subsequently with the owners of affected neighbouring properties to challenge the council on its own potential liability. They claimed that the stream itself and/or a public footpath (now closed) which ran between the stream and the properties were on land owned by HBC, and that it should take legal responsibility for what had occurred.
But the council has never accepted liability. Further investigation seems to have stalled on the question of how survey costs might be shared between the council and affected owners or their insurance companies.
The auction will be conducted online by auctioneers based in Manchester, BTG Eddisons on 28 October: see [email protected]
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