Advice On Buying A House To Convert To Flats With A Friend

Maylo

I'm going to buy a house with a friend and then convert into two separate flats which we will both live in.

I guess there are all sorts of complications with this....Any advice as to what should I be thinking about would be very gratefully received.

Many thanks

Ginger_Winner

I guess the most important thing is to make sure that you are 100% sure about the friend, but I guess there must also be complications to do with

- legally turning a house into two flats i.e. from 1 address to 2
- getting separate gas, electric, water meters, etc
- paying for it using two mortgages

Those are some issues - sorry no solutions!

Maylo

Thanks! As friends go they are one of the best! Advice on the other areas would be appreciated if anyone out there knows anything!

clutton_2

you will need to get planning permission for a start - talk to your local authoirty planning department before you do anything else at all. This can take 3-4-5 months to get permission. You will need to split the legal title to make it into 2 titles before you can each buy one separately. Tell your solicitor your plans upfront so that he can advise. you will also need a good mortgage broker who can find you the best "no penalties" deal for when you redeem the first mortgage.

Finally it is not cheap to split a house into 2 !!

Maylo

Thanks - I haven't found a property yet, so we are at the very early stages. Based on what you have said it sounds like we should talk to local authorities of the areas we're interested in first. It's one of those situations that we need to club together to get what we want as it's all so expensive and see how we go. Budget wise - I guess it depends on the property and its suitability to split? Again, any further advice would be much appreciated!