A Loving Light
Copyright© 2026 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 22: Property Empire
Despite my insistence that it wasn’t a business lunch, the conversation inevitably turned in that direction towards the end of the meal. Mark and Imogen were taking me to meet an estate agent later that evening—the same one who’d originally shown me and Will around my house. He was going to show me two houses that Mark, Imogen, Vanessa and Emily had seen while I was in Atlanta.
Mark was convinced they were both perfect for our fledgling student property empire. Imogen was less convinced, but while she had a small stake in the business, Mark had experience of working with his father, and it was fair to say he knew more about property than she did.
But she knew more about making a house a home than he did, so I wasn’t about to dismiss any of her concerns out of hand.
The original plan was to meet the estate agent at the first of the two properties, but I called him a couple of hours before we were due to do that and invited him to come and meet me, and my team, at my house instead.
“You know the address, Simon,” I said to him. “You sold me the house!”
“Sure do, Paul. I’ll see you at six.”
By five forty-five, my team was assembled and waiting for his arrival. In addition to me, Mark and Imogen, I’d obviously invited Marie along, since she’d end up managing the properties. But I’d also invited Ollie. I intended to get what was currently JMS Westmouth, but would become Brown Clapton Taggart in just nine days, to do the legal work to buy the properties, and Ollie was now my main contact there.
“Paul,” he said after entering the house first, followed by a young woman who, wouldn’t you know it, could very easily have been described as ‘just my type’—although her hair was shorter than most of the blondes in my orbit, merely shoulder-length, rather than halfway down her back. I could see Mark smirking at me as soon as he saw her. “This is Rachel Daniels. She is currently by far the best paralegal in the residential team.” He leaned towards me and stage-whispered, “But don’t tell her that, it’ll go to her head.”
Rachel extended her hand, which I shook. “Nice to meet you, Mr Robertson.”
“Paul,” I said. “Just Paul.”
“I only really do commercial property, not residential,” Ollie said. “But I have a few clients who have branched out into residential lettings. Over the past year or so, Rachel has done the conveyancing for them on my behalf. She knows the work inside out, is super-efficient, highly competent, and well on track to get herself fully qualified as a solicitor.”
I nodded.
“And believe me, it’ll be to the firm’s benefit when she is. She’ll be a real asset.”
Rachel blushed.
“She’ll work under my supervision, but for this job, she’s your main point of contact.”
I nodded again. “In that case, Rachel...” I held my hand out towards Marie. “This is Marie Tomlinson. She was my executive assistant, but I’ve just promoted her to Managing Director because she’s just that good.”
Rachel held her hand out, and Marie shook it.
“Nice to meet you,” they both said at the same time. Then they both giggled.
I rolled my eyes.
We went into the kitchen to wait for the estate agent. We didn’t have to wait long—he arrived five minutes later.
I went to answer the door myself.
“Simon,” I said with a smile and extending my hand. As expected, he was alone. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting the team I had waiting for him in the kitchen. “Nice to see you again. Come on in.”
He shook my hand as he entered and said, “Nice to see you too, Paul. How’s the house? It’s almost a year now, isn’t it?”
“Near enough,” I said. “And it’s great. You haven’t seen it since I bought it, have you?”
“No. No, I haven’t.”
“Well, I think we did a good job. I’d love to hear what you think of it. Come through to the kitchen.” I led the way. “Just so that you know what we’re planning, this house is the template. The standard we want to get whatever we buy up to.”
“That’ll take some effort. This is quality work in here. Who did it?”
“It was mostly Mark. His dad’s a builder, and he’s worked with him. Of course, apart from the kitchen, it was all cosmetic—but Mark still did a great job.”
“Yes. Yes, he did.”
Simon Pearce was everything you expect when you think of an estate agent. Slick, charming, impeccably dressed in a dark grey suit, white shirt and colourful tie, and with newly polished shoes.
He was every inch the stereotype, even down to the black BMW he drove.
We entered the kitchen, and he did a slight double-take, but quickly adjusted to the larger-than-expected group.
“Let me introduce my team,” I said. “Then you can give me a rundown of what we’re going to see before we head off.”
“No problem,” Simon said. “Although, Ollie, I already know, obviously. And that’s young Rachel, I believe?”
Rachel nodded. “Hi, Simon.”
“How’s things, Si,” Ollie said. “Ready to take another drubbing at the clay shoot this year?”
“You beat me by one bird, Ollie. One bird.”
I looked at Ollie and raised an eyebrow.
“The firm holds a clay shoot for the local estate and land agents every year—in June, usually. There’s a golf tournament for clients and other professional contacts in July, too. The clay shoot is very competitive. It’s always a great day.”
“And Ollie was last year’s Top Gun,” Simon said. “The highest scorer. Shame for him that his teammates weren’t as good.”
Ollie shrugged.
I nodded. “Okay, so you know the lawyers, you’ve obviously met Mark and Imogen, but this is Marie. She’s the MD of Wintersmith Investments, and she’ll be your primary contact once we find the right properties and get things underway.”
He smiled and nodded at her. “Pleasure, Marie. I look forward to working with you.”
“Excellent, so...” I said. “Tell me about these two properties.”
Simon smiled. “Three, actually. I’ve just had a new instruction this afternoon that would be perfect for you. I’ve not even started the listing yet, and if it suits, I might not even have to.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “Let’s hope it suits.”
We decided to take two cars. Marie and I would ride with Simon, while Mark would take the others in his pride and joy. That proved to be a good idea as soon as we went outside and Mark headed for the car, which, I had to admit, looked pristine. It wasn’t the battered old pile of junk he’d originally bought anymore—now it was a lovingly restored, iconic classic.
“This is yours?” Ollie said as Mark unlocked it and opened the driver’s door. You could hear the awe in his voice.
“Yep,” Mark said, smugly.
“Oh, mate ... I cannae tell you how much I wanted one of these as a kid. Even just a ride in one, you know? I mean, I know the Golf GTi was technically the better car, everyone did, but man ... Mate, just look at it! The Golf didnae look anywhere near as good as this beauty.”
Mark grinned. “Yep.”
“You know, there was this kid back home that had one—well, I say kid, he was in his late twenties, and he was a dealer, you know? But his car was ... It was white, right, but had these blue tiger stripes all over it. It was...” He shook his head. “I mean, looking back, it was a drug dealer’s car, but when you’re thirteen, you dinnae care, you know? It was just a cool car that you saw about the place.”
The first house was only a couple of streets away from mine and probably a five-minute walk closer to campus.
“So, what’s the deal with this first one?” I asked Simon on the short drive. “I assume both properties are already vacant, given we asked for a quick turnaround.”
Simon nodded. “They are. This first one is a simple estate sale. Been on the market a few weeks. Had some interest, but not much. A few other landlords are sniffing around. A few young families have been to see it, but no one has made an offer yet.”
“How come?” Marie asked from the back seat.
Simon shrugged. “It’s a good house. Structurally sound. No issues. It’s just that, like with yours, it needs a full makeover. The décor is from the early nineties, and it shows. It’s an ideal first-time buyer’s house, but it’s ripe for conversion to a student property, too. The issue is that this market is difficult for first-time buyers, so they are cautious. The amount of work is putting them off.
“I get that,” Marie said. “Can you imagine having to redecorate a whole house with a young child running around?”
“And you know what landlords are like,” Simon said. “They are in it for the money and can afford to play the waiting game. The longer it’s on the market, the more likely the executors are to accept a lower offer.”
I nodded. “Understood. And the second property?”
“That’s a little different. A widower has been moved into a care home by his kids—a son and a daughter. They know they need to sell it to pay the care home fees, but they can’t decide what price to list it at. He thinks they should put it on at the higher end of my estimate to get maximum value, she thinks they should go to the lower end to attract more buyers and maybe sell it quicker. So the property isn’t actually on the market yet.” He glanced at me. “They ... er ... They don’t get on. It’s a bit of a delicate situation. But if the right buyer came along with the right offer and a promise to move quickly...”
“Got it,” I said.
Simon pulled the car onto the driveway of the first house, leaving Mark to park on the road. We got out and stood in the garden, looking at the house.
“It’s a semi,” I said.
Simon nodded.
“Might we have a potential problem with the neighbours if we convert to a student house?”
“Depends on your tenants,” he replied. “Late-night parties, loud music, drugs—that sort of thing would be a problem, for sure.”
“Well, the plan is to be careful who we rent it to,” Marie said.
“You could include behaviour clauses in your tenancy agreement,” Simon said. “That way, if you do get any complaints, you’d have grounds to terminate the agreement.”
“You mean throw them out?” I said.
“That’s another way of putting it, yes.”
“We have a bank of clauses in our precedents,” Ollie said as he joined us. “Rachel and I will sit down and go through them one afternoon. You can go too far with the restrictions—if they get challenged and a judge finds them ‘unfair,’ then they’d be voided. The key is to find the right balance, but I know just how far you can push it.”
“I don’t want to be too restrictive,” I said. “Just to make sure there are no complaints and that they don’t wreck the place. And I want the property back in as good a condition as we handed it over.”
“That’s where your rent deposit is crucial—they don’t get it back if you’re not satisfied,” Simon said.
“Well, it’s not quite that simple,” Rachel said. “It used to be, but the rules have changed. You can still deduct from the deposits, but you need to justify it.” She smiled. “You need the receipts, basically. Real ones. You can’t just claim you paid a cleaning company the whole amount of the deposit.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
“You’ll also need separate bank accounts for the rent deposit,” Rachel said. “You’re not allowed to keep with the rest of your money.”
“I’ll speak to Maddie,” Marie said. “I’m sure she’ll set something up.”
Mark and Imogen had joined us by this point, and Simon led us inside. The house was in a similar condition to mine when I bought it—no obvious signs of structural damage, but it needed to be completely redecorated, a new kitchen and a new bathroom suite. There were three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs, and none of the bedrooms had an en-suite. Downstairs, there was a lounge, the kitchen and a dining room.
“We could turn the dining room into a fourth bedroom,” Mark said. “That would take us up to eighteen grand a year instead of thirteen and a half.”
“Fifteen hundred a term per room?” I asked.
“That’s my assumption,” Mark said.
“That’s probably low,” Simon said. “You could easily get sixteen or seventeen hundred for a property this close to campus. You could charge for the summer as well if the tenants stay late or move in early.”
I shook my head. “The plan is to go no higher than what the university charges.”
Simon raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
I nodded. “We’re not doing this to exploit the students. We’re doing it to help them.”
“Well,” he said, “That’s certainly a different approach.”
“We could charge for the summer, though.” I looked at Mark. “Treat it as a fourth term?”
He nodded. “That’s not a bad idea.”
I looked at Imogen. “It seems ideal. What were you worried about?”
She looked at Mark, then at me. “I was being silly. It’s nothing.”
I smiled. “Now tell me the truth.”
“Emily and I just think if it’s been on the market this long, there must be something wrong with it, that’s all. Why has no one bought it yet?”
I looked at Simon.
“Truthfully, it’s just the décor that’s putting people off. It’s a lot of work for an owner-occupier. Particularly if, like Marie said, they have a young child running around, which the likely buyer for somewhere like this probably will have. They’d have to live with the décor for as long as it takes to redo the whole thing, and having a new kitchen fitted with kids about is even more of a challenge.” He paused. “The lack of an en-suite to the master bedroom is a drawback for a small family, too.”
I nodded. “And the landlords? Why haven’t they snapped it up?”
“Partly the same reason. It needs a new kitchen and probably a new bathroom. Expenses they’d rather not take on. That’s why they’re holding back and waiting for the asking price to come down. Then they’ll probably come in with an offer under the asking price anyway.”
I looked at Mark. “You’ll be doing the work, mate. What d’you reckon?”
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