Kensington – the old picture house, Thorne

We asked our friend and builder, Rich, to give us an idea of how much it would cost to bring down the back of the cinema.

Without him going into the building, he reckoned £20k off the top of his head.

There was no planning permission on the building, but after my meeting with them, I reckon I would get it. Nothing for certain obviously, but risks bring reward.

I thought I’d chuck in a daft offer. £65k. At this point, our offers are subject to survey/contract whatever, so we could always back out.

To cut a long story short, they said they’d accept £120k. So I kept edging up my bid, but they weren’t budging.

They then told me they were going to put it into auction. My final offer was for £100k to not take it to auction, but if they did, all my offers were withdrawn.

They took it to auction.

I’ve never been to any auction, never mind one to buy a house, never mind one to buy a disused cinema.

The different is, when the hammer falls, that forms a contract to complete. If we bid, we couldn’t then back out. We needed to do more homework.

So we paid for a professional valuation. It came back at £80k. That was what it was judged to be worth, and we’d bid over £20k more! Luckily, we’d withdrawn that offer…

And we paid for a structural surveyor. I met him with Rich at the cinema. This would be the first time we’d ever been inside it.

Phew! It is MASSIVE!! Completely gutted with 15 years of pigeon pooh on the floor. We realised it would cost a LOT more to demolish the back bit. The surveyor rang a demolition guy he knew that did the Odeon cinema, and he gave me his ball park figure. £60k – Jeez!!!

Inside the auditorium from Gwyn ap Harri on Vimeo.

A quick spin round of the kensington cinema auditorium in the dark…

From this info we realised that if we bought it even for £80k, it would cost us more than £140k before we even started to build anything. We decided that we’d still go for it, but our max bid would be £85k

I get to London with work quite a bit, so I planned a couple of meetings to coincide with the auction (oh yeah, it was in Covent Garden, London)

I was absolutely papping it at the auction, but I was determined to stick to the plan. Lot number 35. Guide price of £80k+, now that was more like it. I’d heard about the auctioneer ‘taking bids off the wall’ ie pretending that people were bidding when they weren’t, so when our Lot came up, I stood up and went to the front of the room, so I could see if anyone was actually bidding.

“Would anyone give me £80k? Thank you, 80, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90. Any more for 92?”

What!? I couldn’t see anyone bidding at all, and my ceiling had been truly busted.

“Going once, going twice… sorry, but the sellers want a lot more than that.”

Not sold, but the highest bid was for £90k. I picked my bag up and started out to get my train home.

Hang on, I didn’t see ANYONE bidding.

Just before I left the auction house, I just thought I may as well register my interest with them. I told them what I would be willing to bid, and surprisingly they were talking to me. Why, when what I was prepared to bid was lower than the highest bid in the auction? It could only be that the auctioneer just pretended that people were bidding.

They rejected my offer of £85k, and even my generously improved offer of £86k and I went home.

Before xmas, the agent rang me, and told me he had received a higher bid than mine. I didn’t believe him, and even if they had, I figured it would be for more than £90k which I wasn’t willing to go over. So I left it, and we had a nice christmas.

Then the agent rang me again in the new year, and he must have forgotten that he’d lied to me about getting a better offer. He asked me if I would give him any more to play with and try and close the deal. I told him that after speaking to my wife, I’d only go 10% over the valuation to £88k.

He told me they wouldn’t even look at a bid less than £90k, but he then said he would waiver their fee that I knew I would have to pay, which was just short of another grand. Would I give him a bid of £90k if he waivered his fee?

I ummed and ahhed, told him of all the risks, but said, go on then, but not a penny more.

I couldn’t believe it when he rang me back a day later saying they’d accepted.

Oh my…

The next day, contracts were swapped and the cinema was ours.