Former Christchurch mayor Sir Hamish Hay’s Heaton St home has failed to sell by deadline.

The deadline sale closed on July 8, but the vendors decided to change the method of sale, said Bayleys agent Richard Green.

"He’s looking for an unconditional cash sale on the day. He wants a result that’s not subject to a sale of a house or finance or that sort of thing,” Green said.

Hamish Hay was elected to the Christchurch City Council in 1959 and was a councillor until elected mayor in 1974. He completed five consecutive terms of office (fifteen years), serving until 1989. Photo: Christchurch City Libraries / CCL-KPCD18-0013

The heritage-listed house will go up for auction on August 13, he said.

The owners of 70 Heaton St, Merivale, are selling the 1920s-era home “as is, where is”.

The property was part of the estate of Robert Heaton Rhodes before it was subdivided in 1919.

It was built for businessman and philanthropist Robert Ewing McDougall in the early 1920s by the prestigious architecture firm England Brothers.

Hays bought the property in 1961 and lived there with his family for about 40 years. He was mayor for five terms between 1974 and 1989.

He sold it before he died in 2008.

The two-storey, five-bedroom, four-bathroom house sits on 1064sq m of established grounds.

It has an RV of $1.58m.