Readers’ forum: Wasting asset?

My clients have recently sold their beach hut for a sum of £480 000. It has no toilet shower or mains gas or electricity. Gas bottles are used for cooking and lighting. Clients can stay overnight only between April and October.

There is no permanent base on which the hut is located (say bricks and mortar) but merely a wooden platform. They pay an annual licence fee to the local council which owns the land. The council has the right to force my clients to remove the hut if they contravene any of the conditions of the licence. A substantial sum was paid to the council for the transfer of the licence on the sale. My clients own what can be described as a glorious garden shed which incidentally was built by them to replace a dilapidated hut which cost £185 000. The hut could be dismantled...