Estate agency offers ‘resi conversion opportunity’ with Banksy art attached

An estate agent in Bristol has is selling an unusual commercial property at auction with a guide price of £700,000.

The unremarkable property in central Bristol, which is in poor repair internally and which used to be a sexual health clinic, comes with a Banksy artwork painted on the exterior.

Called Well Hung Lover, it depicts a naked man hanging from a window sill as another man looks out with a semi-clad woman behind him.

The online auction, which is to take place in February next year, lists the property as ideal for conversion from commercial to residential use and is being sold with a new 250-year lease by agent Hollis Morgan.

The property is a Grade II edifice with five floors off Park Street, over which the Banksy looms. Hollis Morgan says the eventual purchaser will be required to accept a restrictive covenant in the lease ensuring that the image cannot be removed from the building.

Artwork

“However, the vendor will not require a positive obligation on the purchaser to maintain the artwork or insure it for as long as it shall remain visible and in place on the building,” the firm adds.

“It is recognised that street art is created not as a permanent work of art but as a form of protest which is usually, but not always, created illegally and without the permission of the owner of the building.

“As such, the life of any image as a work of art will evolve and change over time depending on how the work weathers or indeed is subsequently painted over or removed.”

The covenant is not surprising – a Banksy mural on a house in Bristol was estimated to be worth £5 million in 2020.

Pic credit: Hollis Morgan