lan and Lucy Brown had been looking to move for some time, but after viewing over 50 properties, still hadn’t found their dream home. It was while walking their dog in their beloved home town of Dalgety Bay in Fife, Scotland – overlooking the Firth of Forth and Forth Bridge – that their luck changed. They were walking past an empty plot of land and spotted a For Sale sign. Alan and Lucy had lived in Dalgety Bay for most of their lives, and the couple, who have twin daughters, wanted to stay in the area. Alan did some research and found out they only had three days to put in a sealed bid.


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Despite the fact the land had no planning permission, they decided to go for it. A few years earlier Alan suffered the double setback of a brain haemorrhage and stroke, forcing him to


march/april 2019


take early retirement from his job as duty manager at a hotel. However it also made him grab the chance to get this rare site. “Life’s too short,” he says. “When I see an opportunity I go for it. We took a punt on it.”


The fact the land had no planning meant they were able to secure it for a bargain price. They put in a bid of £31,313.13, a figure concocted by Alan based on the couple’s unlikely lucky number of 13, and later found out they’d been successful.


The next task was to try and get planning permission, and Alan and Lucy set about contacting an architect friend. Unfortunately, now living in Dubai, he was unable to help. He gave them details of another architect he knew, Andrew Black, and after speaking to a few practices they decided to go with him. “It was


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