Overton Community Centre

 

Background

Overton Community Association (OCA) began the process of buying Overton Community Centre in 2016. OCA has been responsible for running Overton Community Centre for nearly 40 years as tenants. Professional estimates for conveyancing came in at about £2,500 which is 10% of OCA’s turnover so OCA trustees plan to do the conveyance themselves.

Decision making

The process of buying a community centre is, in many ways, more straight forward than a normal property purchase.

• OCA already knows the building well.
• The seller is a trusted public body.
• There is no lender involved.
• Purchase price is substantially lower than a domestic sale.
• The building has been on the site for many years.

Conversely, there are probably things which make the purchase more challenging.

• Local authorities are notoriously difficult to deal with.
• The purchaser could be under the oversight of committees and the Charity Commission.

In addition to these points, any conveyance takes a great deal of time but doing it ourselves will undoubtedly take longer. It is also more interesting. If all goes wrong during the conveyance process then there is always the option of throwing in the towel and calling in the pro’s. All of these points needed to be weighed up before deciding to undertake the conveyance of a community centre.

Conveyancing is, in many ways, a more straight forward process than many purchases. There are processes for proving ownership are far more robust than most other items.. The “searches” tell you a lot more about what you are getting than a car dealer might. You can go up and see the item being purchased and be pretty sure it is what they say it is.

Ultimately, the decision to undertake the purchase and conveyance of the community centre rests with the charitable trustees who will have to do the work.