Buying & Selling

The 90 flats in Perronet House are of mixed tenure, some remain council owned and tenanted, others have been acquired by the tenants and some sold on to new leaseholders. From time to time these popular flats are sold on the open market.

If you are interested in buying in Perronet House you are welcome to register your interest and I may be able to find you a seller and answer questions. If you are a Perronet House leaseholder looking to sell your flat contact me and I may be able to help you find a buyer. There is no charge for this service.

Mortgages have been readily available at Perronet House over many decades, however the access to loans is not quite as easy as some properties because of latent anxiety amongst surveyors about high rise council owned properties. Much of this anxiety is unfortunately misunderstandings about the specific attributes of Perronet House, and this page seeks to address some of these:

SURVEYOR GUIDANCE

  1. It is not “system built” or ‘”pre-fabricated” like some council houses of high and low rise design constructed between the 1950s and 1970s. It is of conventional in-situ concrete construction much like the 21st century towers at Elephant and Castle. The concrete structure is infilled on the exterior with solid brick panels and the steel window frames. Details about all tower block construction can be found in the definitive text on high rise UK public housing, “Tower Block” (Glendinning and Muthesius, 1994) – the gazetteer at the back lists every block built.  Go to page 367 of the online pdf, page number 356 of book. Perronet House is at the very bottom right of the page [listed by its GLC name of Elephant and Castle CDA Site 4 (Princess St)] – it does not have an unusual construction listed next to it. Compare this with, say, the Commercial Way blocks described immediately above which are listed as having Larsen-Nielsen (one of the  most famous system-built techniques) – or the Aylesbury development (detailed two pages earlier) – which says they are Jespersen construction.
  2. There is no cladding nor ever has been. Some surveyors mistakenly assume the white panels beneath the windows are cladding. They are in fact enamel painted metal, an integral part of the galvanised steel windows that were fitted when built.
  3. The building has had substantial improvements in the last decade including all renewal of all internal communal wiring (rising and lateral mains), fire safety improvements to communal areas and property doors.
  4. The building is desirable. The value of properties here have increased by over 100% since 2012 and this website maintains a list of interested buyers. Mortgages have been acquired from Santander and HSBC in recent years. View property prices for Perronet House at SE1 6JR (lower floors) and SE1 6JS (higher floors).
  5. Originally the building stood on ‘piloti’ that were an open thoroughfare and parking space. In the late 1980s these pillars on lower levels were filled in to accommodate additional residents in new flats (differentiated by having hard-wood windows and brick walls) and to enclose the parking in garage units. These can be rented from the council for parking a car or using for general storage.
  6. All windows from the second floor and above are the original galvanised steel frames made by Crittal. All the large opening panes and some of the smaller panes are double glazed, as they were from new, the other panes are single glazed.

NOTEWORTHY FACTS

  • Perronet House was commended in a government award for housing in 1971.
  • Perronet House’s architect, Sir Roger Walters was knighted the year Perronet House was completed.
  • Eighty of the flats in Perronet House are split level over five floors each, providing dual aspect views west and east.
  • The building is fitted with a gas supply to each kitchen for powering the cooker. Some residents have had this supply removed as they prefer to use electric.
  • Perronet House welcomed over two hundred guests as part of in London Open House in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
  • Permission can be obtained from the council to reconfigure flats and remove or add walls, creating bold new contemporary properties as have previously featured in Open House and on blogs such as “Modernist Estates”.
  • The view from Perronet House includes two listed buildings in the foreground. The first to be listed was the large metal box at the centre of the junction. It was designed by Rodney Gordon in 1965 as a memorial to local resident Michael Faraday. It also contains an electricity substation for the underground. The more recent listing is Metro Central Heights, a 1960s mega structure designed by Erno Goldfinger as offices in the early 1960s, condemned for having sick building syndrome when used as the HQ for the government’s DHSS and subsequently painted cream and converted into flats in the 1990s. It was listed in 2013 (presumably because of its architect notoriety more than the building’s integrity which is far from original either inside or out).

BUYERS TIPS:

  • When seeking a mortgage work very closely with a surveyor and encourage your seller to. Point them towards the facts on this page. Emphasise that many leaseholders have obtained mortgages in recent years with banks including HSBC and Santander.
  • Ask for an electrical safety certificate or get an electrician to check the wiring in your flat before you agree the sale price. The flat you are viewing may need rewiring if it has not been done since it was built. A seller should be able to provide you with a certificate of recent electrical safety if work has been done. The original design of the earth in these flats relies on a good connection throughout the metal conduit that contains the live and neutral wire – a conventional design at the time. The council has rewired all tenant flats but leaseholders may not have. To rewire a flat and chase in the new cables costs about  £5,000.
  • Check the condition of the two water tanks, hot and cold. The originals are metal and many are very corroded from the inside out, some even discretely leak. Leaseholders are responsible for the cost of replacing their cold water tank but the renewal of the hot water tank is inclusive within your service charge and can be replaced by the council’s heating contractor if they deem it necessary. Be suspicious of any cold water tank that is still metal, a new replacement will be plastic, and if the exterior of the hot water tank shows any signs of corrosion ask the vendor to contact the council’s repair team and get it checked out to save you the hassle should you move in.
  • Check for proof of permission for flats where walls have been removed or added in. The owners must provide written evidence from the council of permission having been granted. You could be liable for the cost of restoring the property to its original configuration. If you are unsure whether a wall has been removed contact me – there is a standard layout for the four different sized properties (studio, 1 bed, 2 bed, 3 bed)
  • We have been told by the council that our windows will not be considered for replacement anytime soon. The Tenants & Resident Association is currently of the view that white uPVC windows should not be installed. An estate agent informed one leaseholder this would devalue their property on aesthetic grounds. Nearby Draper House was reglazed by the council in 2017 with black framed windows, which are much more appropriate.
  • The government’s incentive for council tenants to buy their property is very generous and tenants are encouraged to buy their flats in this splendid building. A discount of £116,200 (as of 2023) together with the council’s tendency to undervalue property can give tenants an effective discount of about £150,000.