Block of apartments being constructed behind possible house

We are about to view a house that has been on the market since last summer. It’s currently at £800k asking. When I inquired about the reasons it’s been on the market so long, one of the reasons given was that there’s an open planning application with the local council to construct a block of 6 flats in land behind the house (literally a couple metres). That land is currently a car park.

We’ve looked into the planning application, and while we don’t think it’s necessarily a dealbreaker for us, it does slightly dampen the excitement as the garden may lose some light/privacy, and obviously the disruption during construction. Also with flats you may get noise, issues etc. There are benefits in that the land would be landscaped etc so may be more attractive for the house value looking out on a car park as of now, but overall it’s probably a negative.

We are wondering with all this in mind if we should bid lower? As mentioned the property has been on the market a while and has come down 100k in asking price since then (it was super overpriced to begin with!), so not sure if seller would negotiate with a lowball offer, or just shut up shop. But from our perspective this build does impact house value as it’s otherwise a lovely, secluded location.

Would you look to bid lower in this case? Or aschew altogether?

Posted Jan 7, 2026, 3:04 PM UTC

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