Any ideas?

bnoc

My fiance and I are moving to London - eek London prices! We are keen to buy somewhere as we're both of the view that renting is dead money, but we're not sure of our best route to that end and would value any opinions.

I am equitably entitled to our current home in Guildford which was recently valued at between £270, 000 and £300,000. My mother has legal ownership and a fixed rate mortgage (6.05%) on the property with Bank of Scotland, it has three years left to run and is for £187,500. I can find tenants happy to pay £263/wk for the property so can cover the repayments (£945.08/mth) and clear £2335 annually.

I will be starting full time employment in September (currently a post-grad student) on £18,500 and my partner will be on £22,000.

I have no savings but a lot of student debt (£18,000 Student Loans Company and £20,000 Career Development Loan). My fiance has some student debt (£12,000 Student Loans Company) but also £12,000 in savings and is in the process of being gifted £50,000 by her nan.

The questions I was hoping people could offer opinions on are:

1> Do we sell the Guildford house to increase our deposit?
2> Do we keep the Guildford house to increase our income?
2a> If we keep the Guildford house do we transfer legal ownership from my mother? (this is what my mother would like)
3> Do we buy the London flat jointly?
4> Does my fiance buy the London flat with me retaining ownership of Guildford (assuming I acquire it from my mother) and we draw up mutual wills?

In addition if anybody has any helpful ideas on matters I haven't addressed it would be welcome.

danjberry

do you have a rough idea of how much you would like to buy a property for?

bnoc

danjberry wrote:

do you have a rough idea of how much you would like to buy a property for?

We'd hope to find somewhere for no more than the magical £250,000 threshold.