{"id":754505,"date":"2026-02-10T07:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T07:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/754505\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T07:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T07:53:15","slug":"we-bought-a-900000-houseboat-as-a-london-bolt-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/754505\/","title":{"rendered":"We bought a \u00a3900,000 houseboat as a London bolt hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tIan and Johanna Mitchell say they have no regrets about buying a three-bedroom Dutch barge 11 years ago even though they are now losing money selling it\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

When Ian and Johanna Mitchell, both 68, were living in Nottingham in 2015, they decided to buy a London pied-\u00e0-terre in order to spend a few nights in the capital every week. <\/p>\n

They looked at flats in central London<\/a> and found that a one-bedroom, ground-floor <\/a>flat behind St Bart\u2019s Hospital was over \u00a3800,000, and a quayside, penthouse flat with three bedrooms was \u00a31.7m.<\/p>\n

After visiting a friend who lived on a houseboat,<\/a> the couple looked at buying a boat and mooring it on the River Thames instead. \u201cPeople thought we were nuts,\u201d says Johanna, a retired psychologist.<\/p>\n

New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n

Their search threw up a Luxemotor Dutch Barge in a shipyard in Holland, which had been commissioned just before the owner run out of money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shipyard put it up for sale and we fell in love with it and bought it,\u201d says Ian, a retired cardiac surgeon. In total, the couple paid around \u00a3900,000 in cash for the Battersea mooring and the boat. <\/p>\n

The price included getting the barge\u2019s hull cut in half to make it longer and designing the interiors to their own personal specifications, all done with the help of a boat architect. <\/p>\n

Houseboats are stamp-duty exempt so they only had to pay the tax on the mooring, which Ian said was minimal. Houseboat mortgages can be difficult to secure, however, as many lenders only lend on the value of the mooring. \u00a0<\/p>\n

After a year, the boat, named Sargia II, was ready and Ian and one of his sons sailed it across the North Sea and up the Thames to its mooring at St Mary\u2019s Wandsworth Pier in Battersea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe own the mooring, which is rare in London. We were lucky as when we started looking, someone was building the pontoon. [The mooring] is an asset as it\u2019s like a bit of land.\u201d<\/p>\n

The barge is 30 metres long and has 1,276 square feet of accommodation, including three bedrooms, two en-suite bathrooms, a kitchen\/living room, utility room and a wheel room which is currently used as a dining room.<\/p>\n

\"IanThe boat is moored in London so the couple can visit the capital during the week (Photo: Jonny Hines)<\/p>\n

It has been kitted out with a log burner, Miele appliances, a pop-up TV and even an underfloor wine cellar, kept cool thanks to the temperature of the Thames.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompared to the \u00a31.7m quayside penthouse, we have the same size and spec for significantly less money,\u201d says Ian.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the couple who now live in a village near Worthing in Sussex, have made full use of the barge with weekly trips to stay for a few days. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an hour-and-a-half drive and then it\u2019s \u00a35 to park overnight. We\u2019ve had lots of parties there,\u201d says Ian.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the neighbours rented their boat out to the film company making What\u2019s Love Got To Do With It? starring Emma Thompson and Lily James, and our boat was used by the film crew as the rest boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IanThe boat has three bedrooms and two en-suite bathrooms (Jonny Hines)<\/p>\n

While Ian and Johanna don\u2019t permanently live in the houseboat, the 10 other moorings live there all year round. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a good community here and everyone is very friendly,\u201d says Ian. Despite being in London\u2019s Zone 1, he adds that you don\u2019t get traffic noise on the Thames and it\u2019s quiet and peaceful.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s slightly different to a house as you have the rising and falling tides every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the barge is \u201cperfectly seaworthy\u201d, apart from its maiden voyage, it has only been used as a houseboat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can sail to Teddington, but you can\u2019t go through the locks due to its size,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

The couple pay council tax at Band A to Wandsworth Council, which comes to \u00a355 a month, a service charge for the maintenance of the pontoon and a fee to the Port of London Authority for use of the Thames. These bills total \u00a35,000 a year. <\/p>\n

On top of that, Ian estimates that annually, they pay \u00a3600 for electricity, \u00a31,500 to power the diesel burner that heats the boat and \u00a3150 for mains water. The houseboat is connected to mains drainage, and the family use a Vodafone dongle for the internet.<\/p>\n

While the pair say \u201cit\u2019s been great\u201d having the barge, they\u2019ve decided to put it up for sale to release money for their adult children. It\u2019s currently priced at \u00a3775,000, less than what they paid for it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve priced it realistically to sell as we know the market in London at the moment,\u201d says Ian. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost a bit with this sale, but we would have lost more if we\u2019d bought a flat in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair certainly have no regrets: \u201cWe\u2019ve had 10 years of lots of fun. Would we do it again knowing that we\u2019ve lost a bit of money? Yes, definitely. It\u2019s got everything that a house has got, it\u2019s just a boat. It\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian and Johanna Mitchell say they have no regrets about buying a three-bedroom Dutch barge 11 years ago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[44492,748,393,4884,257,2516,16,15],"class_list":["post-754505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-boats","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-london","tag-property","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116045257451992768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}