Converted public toilet goes back on the market one year after sale – at a 16pc markup

A former public toilet that was converted in 2016 has been put back on the market after one year, with a wallet-busting price tag of £330,000.

The semi-detached, one-bedroom house in Ewell Village, Surrey, sold last year for £285,000 – and it appears the seller is keen to make a profit on his purchase, by selling it for £45,000 more than he paid for it in 2016.

The property is half of an old public toilet that was converted into two houses despite objections by local residents, with the developer insisting at the time that the toilets needed to be knocked down.

The toilet had been in a dismal state, he said, with litter, drug packets and vermin surrounding the site.

The building has since been converted into a modern, open-plan house with a double bedroom and en-suite bathroom.

It is listed with local estate agent Mark Anthony. 

While the £330,000 price tag seems hefty, the average property price in the Epsom suburb – which is a 31-minute direct train ride from London Waterloo – is a whopping £563,112.

The toilets were first auctioned off by cash-strapped Epsom council in 2012 for £68,000, according to the Epsom Guardian. The council said the closure of the toilets, along with those in Stoneleigh Broadway and the Upper High Street car park, would save £21,000 a year.

Surprisingly, the property is not the first converted toilet in the UK to be called home.

An Arts and Crafts style public loo in Forest Hill, south-east London, was converted into a home in 2002. In Witney, Oxfordshire, architect Jon du Croz lives with his family in a former toilet bought for £36,000 in 2005. 

And Laura Jane Clark, also an architect, snapped up a former WC after she spent nearly six months trying to persuade her local council to show her the set of redundant underground toilets that were lying empty.

The public conveniences, situated below ground, revealed a Ladies and Gents placed end-to-end to form a long thin space furnished with rubble, rusty plumbing and unsavoury toilet cubicles complete with cisterns. It was converted into a modern one-bedroom flat for around £60,000.