Buying house but not living in it?

Greyhorse

Hi Everyone,
We are currently living at home saving for a deposit on a house.

The oppertunity of our dream house has come up for sale. It is an old gravekeepers house which sits alongside a graveyard. It is a beautiful old house with pemission for a 3 bed residential home, although it was previously used built as a house it has not been lived in for some time.
The house comes with a huge garden, private driveway, front garden, a chaple of rest??? and is detatched with the only neighbor being the graveyard to either side. This wouldnt bother me but would some hence has been for sale a while. It is up for around 80k.

The house needs lots of work and would not be livable straight away. We live at home so would be able to continue doing so. What would happen with regards to bills/council tax etc?? I would guess it would take at least a year for us to move in.

We are first time buyers, would a mortgage be difficult to get on this type of property? We could have a 10% deposit.

Basically, is the idea stupid and would we be better off putting money away to buy something we can just move into?


Thanks

skivenov

It does sound like the sort of place I'd love to live in myself. I'd say you need to be very realistic about the work the house needs, what you'll be able to do yourselves, and what you'll need to get someone in for.

morganedge

Can't you get the ghosts to carry out some of the work whilst you prepare to move in?? Only kidding, sounds pretty cool to me.

I think there used to be a rule where you didn't pay council tax for the first 6 months on an unfurnished property, but that may have changed. cut off the electricity etc too??

I think wait for someone more knowledgable to answer as I clearly don't really have a clue....

CLAPTON

many mortgage lenders require the house to be habitable

jamie11

If the work needed is going to take a long time you can apply for a class 'A' exemption from CT. The council will want to inspect before granting it though. That lasts for a year I think,

(After you've bought it of course.)

InMyDreams

Presumably you also have the funds (in addition to the 10%) to do the work that needs doing? In which case I think you'd be better off putting them towards a bigger deposit on a place that doesn't need so much work doing to it.

If not, how would you fund it? Even if you could get a mortgage (which as stated by CLAPTON would likely require the house to actually already be habitable anyway) you would only get 90% of the current un-renovated value, not 90% of what you think the renovated value would be.

Greyhorse

Luckily I am not superstitious (and have 3 large german shepherds to make me feel a little better home alone!!)

The house has not been lived in for some time as it was used as an office base for a company but the internal layout is the same as it was when it was lived in. It has planning permission for some work to be done (garage, new bathroom, etc) and it would need a full renovation inside really.
We could do much of the work ourselves except the structural work and plumming/electric but it would be a long term project! It would hopefully be a forever home though.

I am just a little concerned re mortgage as the house would be unoccupied! Also as we a first time buyers we may be being too ambitious.

We cant afford to buy for another 5-6 months yet anyway but hopefully it will still be on the market as it has been for 2 years and has been reduced from 140k!

Greyhorse

We have some savings to renovate or will have in 5-6 months. It would be a toss up between buying this with a 10% deposit and using the rest plus some to renovate or puutting a larger deposit down on a more expensive but habitable house.

The rest of the work we would have to do in bits, hence long term project as money not available all at once, but as we wouldnt be living there it would be doable. We haavnt actually done much about this at the moment so its more of a what if type question as obviously there are alot of things to check and calculations to be done

HappyMJ

You can get a mortgage based on 50% of the current value quite easily and then get more money later to pay the contractors when the work is completed and the value has gone up. So it would mean spending all your savings (or using parents savings) buying the house and having a contractor who doesn't mind getting paid in full 30 days after completion of the work. A mortgage broker would be essential. If the additional funds are not available when the work is complete you would have to sell and pay interest to the contractor at the statutory rate of 8%.

Dave_Ham

This will be incredibly tricky to obtain a mortgage, if at all.

The initial non-occupancy would be a barrier, but the property itself will be a bigger hurdle to overcome.

Firstly, if used as an office you need to understand whether it will be deemed as commercial still, or part and part. If it is, you will never get a mortgage with a 10% deposit and likely not at all.

Given it has not been lived in, my personal opinion is that this is a step too far for a first time buyer.

Check specifically with a mortgage broker or advisor in branch and give property specifics and ask if mortgageable.

Alternatively, post a link here and someone will give you an indication.

Good luck

Greyhorse

Thanks everyone.


Sorry for possibly stupid question. So I couldnt just get a mortgage for say 80k and finance the rest ourselves? Its current value is 85k I believe but I have spoken to the agent out of curiousity and he is sure the vendor would take an offee.

This is the property. No internal pics though unfortunatley.
http://www.kimmittandroberts.com/content/Buying/Property_Details/property-sales-kmrrps-SHM110080

thanks for all advice I appreciate it.

The alternative would be a new build at around 140k in this area (county durham)