The Envy of all of my Friends

Hi everyone

Joe here. I have been renting this house for 13 years! It is absolutely incredible and has been one of the great loves of my life. However, one of my housemates is also my husband (Alfredo) and we have decided to buy a [much less fabulous] property of our own (sadly, outside London where we can afford).

I'll start with some important points. Sorry if this comes across as austere, but I just want to set the facts out...

I'll be adding more photos soon.

From Thursday 19th December we will start accepting appointments to come and visit the house.

Property visits can been booked for any date from Friday 10th January, up to Thursday 16th January (inclusive).

We will pick one or two new housemates on Friday 17th January and introduce you to the Landlord's Renewals Agent (Portico) to go through the referencing/credit checks. I'm afraid students and professionals on probationary period or Self Employed people are likely to need to stump up 6 months' rent in advance. Horrible, I know. Sorry about that.

Please be aware that the security deposit is 5 weeks of the total rent amount (£4,615) and this is split equally between all 4 housemates (£923 per person). The landlord holds the deposit in the protection scheme and in my 13 years he has never witheld any deposit amount from any outgoing housemate. Spareroom would not allow me to reflect this £923 figure for the box room because it appears to breach the 5 week rule for that specific room however, technically, it doesn't because the contract is joint and severally liable.

The renewed lease will commence on Wednesday 19th February and that is the move-in date.

Couples are welcome but you will need to rent both rooms (£1,530/mth total or £765/mth per person) and pay 2 shares of the bills. This is actually what Alfredo and I do at the moment. It's been great having our own office/games room/extra storage right next door to the master bedroom.

The rent quoted is actually 5% higher than we pay at the moment as the rent is normally increased at renewal time. If the rent increase is lower than 5% then we can adjust this down, if it's a higher we will need to adjust it upwards.

Wifi, gas, electric, water, and council tax (Band G) are roughly £115 per person per month (for 4 people). During my tenure we have also shared the cost of a TV licence, Sky TV, premium channels, a cleaner once a fortight, a gardener once every 4 weeks, a garden refuse collection service, and household funds that we use to buy all the house stuff (toilet roll, laundry pods, dishwasher tabs etc). However, I've not included those bills as you might not want to continue doing things in exactly the same way that we have.

A single person can also rent both rooms for £1,530/mth and potentially the bills could be split between 3 (roughly £153/pppm).

Remaining in the house are my good friend, Hayes (Chartered Surveyor) who has a bedroom on first floor, and lovely Kyran (Chartered Accountant) who we found on Spareroom, and his bedroom is the converted library on lower ground floor. Both Hayes and Kyran almost always work away from the house at their respective offices. The two rooms for rent are the master bedroom (£905) and the box room (£625) both on first floor. The 3 rooms on first floor share the master bathroom on first floor. All 4 rooms share an addional WC on upper ground. And Kyran has his own bathroom on lower ground. All 3 washrooms have a toilet.

Please note that, although the box room has almost always been rented out as a bedroom (before I started renting it as my office), it is small. There are some great built-in wardrobes in the room, and if you put a queen size bed in (i. e. small double) you'll have a reasonable amount of space left over for a bedside table and to get changed etc. The box room does not have a bed at present so you will need to get one. The box room is definitely the budget option in the house, but what I can tell you is that while you might find a bigger bedroom elsewhere for the money, you've got absolutely no chance of finding a better home than this for that money. You have bags and bags of communal living space; it's a palace in Zone 2. And it's less than 1.5km from the border of Holland Park; very arguably Prime London.

The master bedroom is fantastic. Large, with two built-in wardobes and plenty of space to move about. Alfredo and I even have a little seating area in the corner. The bedframe can remain in the master bedroom so you just need to get yourself a new mattress (king size). The bedframe has under bed storage.

Also on lower ground we have a separate kitchen, leading to 100ft of private back garden, a separate dining room, a utility room, a secure and covered side-alley where we keep our bikes and other things, and on upper ground there are two reception rooms and a sun room looking out over the garden.

The area is incredible. We have 9 tube stations within 1 mile. There are two 24hr buses that stop right outside the house: 237 and 94 (the latter being particularly useful as it runs straight across London to Picadilly Circus). We are on the corner of Ravenscourt Park which is delightful, and not far from the bottom of the park is one of the best stretches of the River Thames. If you're a runner, you're spoilt for choice. Eastwards from the house you have Westfield White City about 1km away which is a gateway to Holland Park and Notting Hill; I normally cycle there in a matter of minutes. Just round the corner we have our own boutique high street (Askew Road), full of independents. Arthur's Coffee House is next door to our next door neighbour; they are a pro-canine cafe who also serve organic wine and espresso martinis.

It's really a joy to live in such a great, big house, with a huge garden, in such a fantastic area. As far as I'm concerned, it's been worth every single penny over the last 13 years and I will look back on my time here with enormous gratitude.

If you think this could be for you feel free to get in touch from 19th Dec to ask about coming to visit between 10-16 Jan. You are welcome to contact me sooner to ask any questions but please be aware that I am currently in Mexico, landing back in London on 20th Dec so I might be a bit slow to respond until then.

Many thanks.
Joe (and Alfredo, Hayes, and Kyran)