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Please Note: This page contains the formal accounts of our main project company: Unique Property Bulletin Ltd. The “mischief club” (formal name: Unique Property Business Angel Group Ltd,. is on a separate bespoke page).
However, as each renovation project is generally ringfenced and with different members’ owning each individual building project, in the interests of full disclosure, the directors’ can confirm that for the current 2024/2025 financial period, there are a total of 9 limited liability companies and currently 111 active unique property owning members’ (from a historic membership of 585 members since 1995).
During this website rebuild, the Accounts + Annual Report for each company shall be added to ensure full transparency as we may be taking the organisation into a “plc” (public limited company) format again (1998-2007 plc: click here).
The registered charities born from Unique Property plc and Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., are completely different and separate entities. The first #1 in 1997: click here and second #2 in 2012: click here. With the Lighthouse Preservation charity #3 and the separate Community Owned Power Generation Station (affordable energy supply) referenced occasionally as #4.
Returning To Our Unique Property Mischief Projects
The “before” and “after” photographs assist in illustrating each past, current and future project. The old adage, “a picture paints a thousand words” can help…
^^ Noss Head Lighthouse Station ^^
One of many...
Unique Property rescue and restoration projects
managed by our core volunteers and
Unique Property Business Angel Group Ltd
We shall also include past accounts; for example the above photograph illustrates the old Noss Head Lighthouse Station project UPC#24 as managed by the Unique Mischief Club.
At that project purchase, there were included: 33 acres of land, upon which sat three Grade A listed buildings, plus four lighthouse homes that were “within the curtilages” of Grade A listed buildings. So this was a complex restoration on many levels.
We will be narrating the start-to-finish of our Noss Head Lighthouse Station unique property venture on this website in due course for the benefit of our Unique Property Bulletin readers. This is so that experience and techniques can be freely published to help those who hold an interest in owning their own air~control~tower, barn, church, distillery eco~home, fort, guardhouse, hotel, island, jail, etc., and of course in this case an actual lighthouse keeper’s home (after HM Land Registry title-split into affordable homes)…
^^ Noss Head Lighthouse Station ^^
18 Months of Adventure Renovating These Buildings
(c) 2018: Photograph Courtesy of Mr Les Armishaw.
This was Unique Property Bulletin’s fourth lighthouse station. Though as you may see if you study the photograph above this paragraph, there are 6 buildings (two blocks in the photo contain semi-detached homes ~ equating to 8 separately definable structures).
All of these 8 buildings required renovation. The penultimate was the lighthouse tower. That iconic edifice is still owned and maintained by the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB). We are indebted to the crew from the lighthouse board, many of whom stayed in the lighthouse hotel here for the duration of the 14 month lighthouse tower renovation.
The Northern Lighthouse Board restoration crew were big softies and very decent and helpful throughout their stay in our lighthouse hotel. Several of the lighthouse board team are now very good friends who share our passion for preserving these buildings.
Unique Property Could Not Function Without Friends Who Really Know Their Skillsets
^^ Rob & Andy At Noss Head Lighthouse Station In 2018 ^^
To make the point, here is Andy working at height. This is an incredibly important vocation when keeping lighthouse buildings in ship shape condition…
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^^ Rob & Andy Ritchie Working At Height ^^
The reason our paper publication commenced actual building renovation projects (in 1997) was to enhance the narrative within the Unique Property Bulletin so that real life experience can be imparted to you, our reader.
Thanks to friends such as Andy and the Northern Lighthouse team, the Noss Head Lighthouse Station project was completed and each dwelling is now fulfilling its best potential.
Though we should not be complacent…
Even though we ban bank borrowing and ban mortgages on Unique Property Club assets and ensure they are 100% owned by members and 100% insured. there is the occasional loss maker.
Not all projects succeed…
We will let the wisdom of the late great Albert Finney make a very important point... .
^^ Excerpt Elegantly Summing Up Winning & Losing.
Not to make a habit of losing. This excerpt from: “A Good Year.”
(c)Sir Ridley Scott. Fox 2000 Pictures, Scott Free Productions,
Dune Entertainment, Ingenious Film Partners, Major Studio Partners.
Distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Based on the novel by Peter Mayle.
Screenplay by Marc Klein.
It is far better for you, if we fall flat on our face… and you learn a new way to avoid financial minefields or building nightmares.
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Grand Total of 9 Projects
£2,053,838.
Combined Unique Property Club Asset Buildings As At 31st December 2024.
Rule 1: Mortgages are banned on all Unique Property Club buildings.
Rule 2: All buildings are 100% owned by the membership.
Rule 3: All members’ funds for purchase of buildings are paid directly to the Unique Property conveyancing solicitors.
Rule 4: The veracity of who owns what can, at all times be verified independently via Companies House online an HM Land Registry.
Rule 5: All buildings are fully insured for full rebuild replacement and third party public liability claims.
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Unique Property Bulletin Ltd
Annual Accounts/Report & Balance Sheet
Thanks to the new 2023 financial services law (here) as it applies to property-clubs, and mercifully the transition period for us to reach compliance: 31st January 2025, we are delighted to advise the passwords are coming OFF of our Unique Property Club pages. This page is just ONE of NINE sets of accounts and contemporaneous notes. This page is for: Unique Property Bulletin Ltd.
For clarification as most sets of accounts have an Annual Report, the following perspective excerpt summarises what all the efforts of Unique Property Group seeks to achieve.
Our book keeper was studying a somewhat large pile of HM Land Registry title deeds from our archived vault. These date back to 1985. She was kind enough to summarise what she found. Hopefully, this helps give you, our reader (and many of our shareholders perusing these pages) some comfort.
This Bext Chart Is From 1997 To 2025 & Provides A Perspective of Our Body of Work
^^ Unique Property Mischief & More ^^
^^ 1997 To 2025 ^^
The Annual Accounts for ONE and the MAIN operating company that owns and project managed the Unique Property Club follows…
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Unique Property Bulletin Ltd
Owner of Unique Property Club
Here is the most recent financial summary of Unique Property Bulletin Ltd.,
Total Unique Property Bulletin Ltd
Assets
£314,427.74
No Mortgages As It Is Company Policy To Ban All Mortgages
^^ Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., Excerpt ^^
Please Note: The American bank account was closed in October 2014 and funds repatriated to the UK before the end of 2014.
If/when further projects commence in America, Canada or Europe, this will be reflected in separate accounts and ringfenced limited companies (or equivalent) in either France, Italy, Switzerland etc.
America and Canada are on the Unique Property Bulletin/Club radar, but not until 2027 or earlier if the new UK-Halifax, Nova Scotia airline route re-starts.
^^ Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., Excerpt ^^
The full Annual Report & Accounts are available from the independent Companies House “live” website: Click Here and for filing history: Click Here.
Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., also project manages (but does not own) the other 11 buildings within the Unique Property Club network (as at 31-12-2024).
Full Disclosure: The total of Unique Property Club buildings, cash and assets under control of the directors of Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., but with each project having a different set of shareholders, is approximately…
£2,053,838.
Combined UPC Asset Buildings As At 31st December 2024.
Mortgages are banned on all Unique Property Club buildings.
All buildings are 100% owned by the membership.
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Unique Property Bulletin Ltd
Cash Balances Including Angels’ Share Reserves
The Annual Report & Accounts for Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., require the book-keeper to present numerous documents for audit. A crucial one, and in the interests of the new legislation (here) requirement for FULL DISCLOSURE is the accounting year end: “cash at bank” reconciliation statement. Here is a vital part of that documentary process for the year~end numbers. The directors of Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., warrant and guarantee this to be a true and accurate electronic version of the original document…
^^ Bank Statement Excerpt For Year End ^^
£60,694.19
^^ “Cash At Bank” ^^
^^ Provided As Part of The New Full Disclosure Protocol ^^
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Unique Property Bulletin Ltd
Mandated Company Rules
^^ Foundation Rules of Unique Property Club (UPC) ^^
^^ & UPC Owner Unique Property Bulletin Ltd ^^
It is important to repeat the earlier statement as these numbers form part of our legal obligation under the “Sophisticated Investor” protocol at a gold-standard of deployment and not just as a legal loophole. We must ensure that our new members can and do know the details of what, why, who, when and how Unique Property Club functions. That is our definition of becoming a legal “sophisticated investor.” This is the spirit of the law
To get to the fun part, we are required to be legal and for reasons beyond our control, and property-clubs fall within the scope of financial services legislation.
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Unique Property Club Number 24
Renovation of Noss Head Lighthouse Station
... ^^ One of 7 Houses At A Tired Looking ^^ Noss Head Lighthouse Station Purchased By Unique Property Club Members in 2017 Now fully restored and viable homes once more.
There were several separate, former buildings within this 33 acre site at Noss Head Lighthouse Station. Each home is now fully renovated.
Splitting Land Registry titles is an unusual phenomenon we shall cover in detail via our regular Bulletin (online: here and here). It applies to castles, WW2 airports, small islands, and our favourite; lighthouse (plus many more large estates that can work better and be economically more viable after a title-split into single homes.
The Land Registry arithmetic tends to result in a 20% to 35% price reduction on “comparables” elsewhere” after the title has been split into affordable single homes.
This really does help keep iconic and unique buildings maintain a maintenance budget.
This may not seem important, but this next photograph shows a “romantic ruin.” This may look picturesque, but is is, in reality the loss of a major building for the worse. It is a main purposes of Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., to help ensure good, viable historic and/or unique buildings are not lost in this “picturesque” way..
^^ Caeverlock Castle: Here and Here ^^
Too late for rescue, renovation
nor any other use for what was once a home to many folk.
Photograph (c) Mr Simon Ledingham: Creative Commons.
There is a greatness in still being able to see these historic buildings, even if they are in a ruinous state.
But it lifts our morale when we can help ensure other sites avoid such ruination and become useful, affordable homes, many with an unusual back story.
^^ Noss Head Lighthouse Station ^^
Now, in 2025, all of the buildings at Noss Head Lighthouse Station have had renovation and restoration work.
Plus we were incredibly lucky to house the Northern Lighthouse Board team when they were renovating the big lighthouse tower. The year of that time was one where fine friendships were made and a deeper understanding of the right way to restore these buildings was learnt.
Noss Head Lighthouse Station is just one site where several folk can call it home. Including a much needed doctor for the local hospital.
This illustrates what can be done when several friends join together to buy and renovate a place such as Noss Head for the purposes of renovating buildings that are surviving at the literal edge of the country in what can be wild and dramatic weather circumstance.
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Title Splitting Really Helps Make Homes Affordable To Renovate & Then Buy By Young Couples
.^^ Noss Head Lighthouse Station After Careful Title-Split ^^
^^Into Affordable Homes ^^
^^ Each Home With A Fair Piece of Lighthouse Land. ^^
Copyright (c) by kind permission of HM Land Registry and Registers of Scotland. Licence 100026316. Plus kind permission from the Ordnance Survey (c) Licence 100052015.
For newer members of Unique Property Mischief Club, the £200,000 (technically £185,000 + £15,000) and official Land Registry information can be studied: here.
It took approximately 9 months to get the first building fit for resale (here and here).
During that time 12 of our 24 shareholders/members were able to travel, some from afar as Australia, and enjoy a week in one of the buildings as part of their participation in this renovation and title-split project.
It is not that well known but Noss Head Lighthouse Station had become utterly derelict and vandalised during the 1990s.
With a lot of hard work, including the trustees being onsite, the Clan Sinclair Trust, headed by a very active Prince Charles (here), managed to renovate Noss Head Lighthouse Station the first time round.
It still messes with our Unique Property Bulletin managing director’s head to have the gentleman who is now King, sitting in the living room having a cup of tea but that is what neighbour’s do in the Highlands.
Those photos are not being published out of respect to the King’s privacy and the privacy of his sister, who is patron of the Friends of TS Queen Mary charity (here and here). The Friends of TS Queen Mary charity was born of the sliding-doors moment from Unique Property Bulletin’s accidental purchase of an earlier Denny built ship, MV Southsea …
^^ MV Southsea ~ The Isle of Wight Ferry ^^
An Earlier Purchase & Adventure By Unique Property Bulletin
From the MV Southsea we learnt a lot about how to support a charity, so much so, that the lessons learned in the M Southsea adventure helped us in profound ways, when it came to rescuing another Denny-built ship, the TS Queen Mary.
^^ TS Queen Mary Before & After Renovation ^^
Crucial to the TS Queen Mary rescue efforts was the sister of the gentleman from whom we bought Noss Head Lighthouse Station. The gentleman was HRH Prince Charles, and his sister is, of course HRH Princess Anne…
^^ HRH Princess Anne Aboard TS Queen Mary ^^
When you register a charity, the hard work is often fundraising. In respect of the Friends of TS Queen Mary charity, it was blessed with HRH Princess Anne and the wonderful, Robbie Coltrane. Plus the reader who phoned an obscure publication (Unique Property Bulletin) with an enquiry on how we managed to rescue the Denny-built MV Southsea (or at least save MV Southsea from being scrapped for several years whilst the 1997 Isle of Wight charity got its ducks in a row).
Our reader and now very good friend is Iain Sim. It was at the point where Iain and Russ joined together that we recommended securing retired chief engineers + master mariners and some of the thousands of folk who support TS Queen Mary and find a way to bring them together.
When many good-hearted folk join together to help in something they share a joint passion for, this is just one of the amazing (and vital) things that happens…
^^ Fundraising For Charity Is Vital ^^
This is what HRH Princess Anne and Robbie Coltrane, along with Iain Sim and 26,000 friends helped achieve.
=> Over £450,000 a year raised for the charity.
When Iain and Russ started the charity, it was a struggle to raised £5,000, let alone the purchase price (scrap metal value) of a 1,000 ton ship from 1933!
Now, thanks to so much good will towards the ship, the first phase of renovation is complete and in our wildest dreams, the next phase is now possible…
=> To progress from a static exhibit, to a fully functional and certificated passenger vessel that will be able to sail the seven seas again.
This may seem a bit of a digression, but the crew at Unique Property Bulletin love the rich tapestry of life and wonderment of how these adventures start. It is a delight to walk along a path with some truly inspirational folk who go out of their way to support various projects.
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For the sake of completeness, here is the first charity that Unique Property Bulletin gave birth to…
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