extra mortgage or remortgage?

frugglewump

Posted on behalf of work colleague.

My friend lives in a 1st floor maisonette and the ground floor has come up for sale. The building was converted from a house and she is considering buying the ground floor & turning it back again. She can raise a 10% deposit, but does not know what sort of mortgage she should be asking the brokers about. Would it be a 2nd mortgage on a separate property or a remortgage over the whole property, or one and then the other after work is completed?

AndrewSmith

If both flats are in the house with no others, why does she not consider buying the freehold interest?

That way she would not only own both flats but also own the buiding and the land on which it stands?

Andy

silvercar

I would find a friendly estate agent and ask them to value to the two maisonettes separately and estimate the property value if it converted back into 1 single house.

You want to make sure it is financially viable before you spend your money.

Dan29

She might also want to check that she's allowed to convert two homes back into one; I believe in some areas of London this isn't permitted.

Daniel_B

silvercar wrote:

I would find a friendly estate agent and ask them to value to the two maisonettes separately and estimate the property value if it converted back into 1 single house.

You want to make sure it is financially viable before you spend your money.

I agree, I would have thought paying for 2 seperate properties, and combining into one, must knock about a reasonable percentage off the original values - and that's before all the building work, 2 sets of fees, 2 sets of stampy duty etc etc

Good case study required me thinks.

Dan