In the afternoon, Andy, holding a cup of steaming British black tea, stood in front of a curved oversized French window, watching the dark sky outside and the drizzle drizzling, constantly hitting the glass, bending and sliding down. .

"Boss, Mr. Tony Pitt is here."

Andy turned to look at the little assistant wearing a gray turtleneck tight-fitting sweater, a black tun tube skirt, and black transparent si socks and nodded slightly, "Let them go to the living room to wait, I'll pass right away."

Andy took a sip of black tea, walked to the coffee table, lowered the cup, picked up a folder from the table, and walked to the living room.

"Good afternoon, boss."

"Sit down, don't be constrained." Andy walked into the living room and saw four people headed by real estate investment consultant Tony Pitt standing up to greet him.

"thank you boss."

"I like this house very much, Tony, you are doing well. I am very satisfied." Andy sat down on the single sofa facing the floor-to-ceiling window and smiled at Tony Pitt on the left.

"Boss, you are satisfied." Tony Pitt laughed, then took out a folder from both sides and handed it to Andy, explaining "Boss, this is what we get from the National Trust and through specific channels or contacts. Or information about a castle estate that you are interested in selling. "

Andy nodded, reached for the folder, opened it and started to look at it. As he flipped through the files with photos, Andy frowned slightly, then looked at Tony and said, "Why so cheap?"

Looking at these three or four million pound manor houses, Andy is a bit speechless. For example, the one he sees now is called Danshall Manor, which introduces the original owner, Richard A., one of the fathers of the British Industrial Revolution. Sir Colette, the manor is a Grade II historic building in the United Kingdom. It is located in Staffordshire and covers an area of ​​857 hectares. It has 12 bedrooms and is equipped with a lake, orangery, ballroom, cellar and a cricket court. It dates back to 1145. The castle estate of the year was priced at only five million pounds.

Andy looked at the photos of the manor house, not inferior to the castle mansion in Downton Manor.

Tony hurriedly explained, "Boss, it is not expensive to buy a castle estate. The key lies in this historical building.

Historical and cultural heritage will have many restrictions on house repairs and stamping. A comprehensive structural and maintenance inspection of the house is required. It is expensive to maintain, and some have been in disrepair. Even if all rooms are painted once, it will cost tens of thousands of pounds. .

Although the Danshall Estate you are looking at is cheap, it has been replaced by several owners and has not been completely repaired. Simply performing a comprehensive repair will cost millions of pounds, even millions of pounds. Not counting the cost of maintaining the castle estate afterwards.

For example, this Waterton Manor, located in Norfolk, Tudor, UK, has a listed price of only 15 million pounds. It has been restored and can be directly moved in, but the cost of this mansion is 2,000 per week. It's around pounds, which doesn't count as labor costs.

The British aristocracy who can afford the estate without work is rare. Many nobles who are desperate and are forced to hand over their ancestral homes and fields to the National Trust. The noble estates that can rely on their hard work to maintain their ancestors should be considered a good ending.

The sky-high consumption of these ancient castle estates is really not affordable for ordinary people.

If you want to use the castle to generate income, such as collecting tickets or something. It needs to be approved by the British government, and then the income from the tickets has to be taxed, and there are too many British castles, so if this castle has no story, it is basically a loss of money. "

Andy nodded somewhat relievedly, knowing that the British inheritance tax was really terrible, and the better nobles had to sell their family collections to raise taxes when they inherited the property.

For those noble families who have fallen, they would rather give these castle estates to the National Trust, rather than choose to inherit them, because for them, these castle estates that can only spend money and cannot make money are simply negative assets and will definitely drag on. Beat them.

Continue to open the photo files, and there are only three that Andy can see. The other castle estates are either the style of the castle or his favorite, or the layout is too small, a 7-20 bedroom castle mansion. , It is no longer within the scope of his consideration.

After all, what he needed was not for his own living, nor did he have the interest to live in the wet and cold English countryside. To experience the aristocratic life, Andy was not interested in pretending to be poor. While those chaotic private lives are a bit of interest, the others are not at all.

"Well? This castle is good!" Andy looked at some familiar Gothic architectural style big castles, and couldn't help but blink his eyes, but he couldn't help but look at the price marked below.

50 million pounds, hey, how dare you open your mouth!

Tony heard the words of the big boss, slightly probed the picture in the folder of the big boss's hand, and said with a smile on his face, "Boss, this Highclere castle located in West Berkshire, London belongs to Count Carnarvon. The family, which currently belongs to the eighth generation of Count Karnaven, George Herbert and Countess Fiona.

Since 2003, after inheriting the manor, they have been trying every way to maintain the manor. They wanted to develop the surrounding land. However, because of the neglect of their neighbors, they did not get the government ’s consent. One million per year. The British pound's estate maintenance management fee has made it difficult for them to pay, especially since last year, the business that could have been paid for visiting tickets by tourism has fallen sharply.

Although they did not sell it publicly, we got the news from a specific circle and contacted the other party to confirm the news. They did intend to sell Highclere Castle.

The castle has been inhabited by the Earl's family, and there are currently 20 full-time servants. The castle has remained almost intact from the post-World War I era to the present, although some family collections have been sold because of the inheritance tax. , But there are currently 4,000 acres of land.

The supporter and participant of the archeological activity that discovered the world-renowned golden mask of Tutankhamen is the fifth generation of Earl Karnavin, but soon died of sepsis in Egypt, and the earl's loyal dog far away in the castle also Barking is more than violent ... "

"Oh? Pharaoh's curse, huh, really is a family with a story, a little interesting." Andy smiled slightly, his story is not important to him, the key lies in the heritage of this castle Preface, preserved intact, this pair he used to shoot "Downton Manor", which can satisfy the idea of ​​packaging marketing as a tourist hotel.

"Oh, 50 million pounds, but it's not cheap at all. If the transaction is to be concluded, except for their personal belongings, they can be taken away. Other things must be kept intact, right?"

Tony heard what Big Boss said, and hurriedly said, "There should be no problem. When I called to confirm the news, I generally asked. They were sold as a whole."

"Okay, let's start talking with the counts. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I'll take a look at Highclere Castle." Andy said lightly as he looked at the photo of the castle.

"Good boss, I'll contact them in a moment."