When Gavin George and his wife spotted their dream house in the leafy suburb of Teddington, south-west London, in 2008, they knew it would not be plain sailing.

The run-down Victorian building decorated in the Arts and Crafts style would be a welcome change from their cramped end-of-terrace house but it would take four years of negotiation with the elderly couple who had lived there for 43 years to agree on a price. And the property itself needed to be pretty much knocked down and rebuilt. But they knew it was worth it - the house's frame and the sprawling, parkside plot of land that sat beneath it screamed potential.