friend wants to give house please help.

confusednorfolk

hello all this is my first post so please be kind !!!!!

I have a friend who wants to give me a small cottage that is adjoined to his property, to help me out. I have known him for a good few years and last month after having yet more problems with the cottage came up with the id.a. he originality got left the property by his mother in 2008 and has lived in the main part of the house ever since. his own house he is in the process of selling.

the cottage which is in bad state of repair need windows no heating etc
tc has been empty ever since for probable it was valued at 60000. he understands tax implications and is hell bent on giving it to me.

it sounds ideal but I am worried about it. the house and cottage are fully I am his name but he is also married and his wife is fine with the idea. he has brothers that have not spoken to him for years as he was the one who inherited the property. I'm concerned if I do take his offe I do years to come I may have a problem.

when I addressed these fears he said not to worry. but I do !!!!!!

he then said if I do not want it free just give him small amount for it if it makes me feel better. can he do this and would I be better doing this ????

please advise.

also his current home is worth about 180 k so even at a later date he was to die he assures me his estate is well below iht.

G_M

1) if he gives it to you, the Title (ownership) will be registered in your name at the Land Registry. Anyone can check the name of the legal owner of any property (well, most) for £3 here.

2) If he owns it he can do what he wants with it. If he owns it jointly (ie with his wife, or brothers) he will need their agreement and signatures. What matters is that the Title ends up registered in your name

3) If the house where he lives, and the cottage, are registered as a single property (it sounds like tey might be, but you can check for £3!), then he (or his solicitor) will need to legally seperate them into 2 seperate Titles. This is fairly easy to do.

4) if the property is in very poor condition, can you afford to renovate it?

Land_Registry

G_M wrote: »

1) if he gives it to you, the Title (ownership) will be registered in your name at the Land Registry. Anyone can check the name of the legal owner of any property (well, most) for £3 here. - if he inherited it in 2008 then I would expect it to be registered

2) If he owns it he can do what he wants with it. If he owns it jointly (ie with his wife, or brothers) he will need their agreement and signatures. What matters is that the Title ends up registered in your name

3) If the house where he lives, and the cottage, are registered as a single property (it sounds like tey might be, but you can check for £3!), then he (or his solicitor) will need to legally seperate them into 2 seperate Titles. This is fairly easy to do. - you can check the extent of the registered title i.e. both his house and the cottage under one title by viewing the title plan. I assume both properties have separate postal addresses so if one shows up as having information available whilst the other does not then likely inference is that they are under one title but checking the register and title plan will confirm this.

4) if the property is in very poor condition, can you afford to renovate it?

It might be worth resolving your other concerns around cost of renovation, whether you give him some money for it and the impact from a financial/tax angle etc as the actual registration aspect would come after you have decided on those issues I suspect - as you would expect Land Registry cannot provide legal advice and the financial/tax aspects are outside of our remit.

confusednorfolk

Many thanks to those that have responded, Im at work now so at least i can keep an eye on this topic as bfore i had to wrtie it all out on my phone with very limited internet capabalities.

I can afford to renovate the propery as my family will lend me some money, in a way i would prefer to give him some money as it would make me feel much better about it all.

I am still worried about if in the future one of his brothers etc lays claim to the property.

Excuse my ignorence but can he accept any amount of money off me ? ie if it is valued at 65k and i was to give him 30k this would not have any problems as the property is 100% below stamp duty money.

Also if this is the way we can agree to go about it would we need to actually have the house put up for sale with a estate agent etc ?? Or could we just do it through convencyers or solictors ( and which is better ) ??

Again many thanks to those that help.

LandyAndy

You don't need an estate agent

If the property is sold to you then your solicitor will ensure that he (your friend) has good title to the property in order to sell it to you. It will then be yours. His brothers can do nothing about it.

LandyAndy

Personally if I was offered a house for free I wouldn't be thinking of offering the donor tens of thousands of pounds. Maybe a token sum if your conscience bids you to do so. Sounds like you are going to need all your funds to renovate it.

RAS

Check whether there is any sort of covenant or anything like an agricultural tenancy involved.

Also if it is in a National Park, check whether you need permission to renovate (yep they count properties that have been emmpty more than x years as new for planning purposes).

Also check the VAT rules etc as once a property has been empty more than two years there are taxes you can reclaim.

zzzLazyDaisy

Also check whether the property has its own gas/electric/water supply, or does it run off the main house meter? If so there will be an additional cost to lay services to the property.

It is entirely possible that the cottage may not even be valued at what you think, as if it is not currently habitable (does it have a functioning kitchen and bathroom) it would be impossible to get a mortgage on it, and this would also affect the value.

It sounds like a generous offer, but do carefully investigate what the costs of renovation really are likely to be, and consider whether you/your family can afford to do this without borrowing - or if you need to borrow, whether you/the house meets the lenders criteria.

jackyann

However good a friend he is, you should look carefully at a gift of this value.
I would get a surveyor to look at it - not just to point out obvious renovations, but also the implications of work. I would get a solicitor to look at any responsibilities (as above) and legal issues of access to the property, including access to get work done.
I would also get a couple of builders to look over it and discuss what needs doing, and the implications.
But I have known someone who took on a house like this, in similar circumstances, just because the worry of it was too much for the owner. They lived in a caravan on site for a few years, working on the house as they could afford it.
Hope it works out!

zzzLazyDaisy

jackyann wrote: »

legal issues of access to the property, !

Just on this point. You will need a solicitor to prepare a lease/agreement giving you right of way over the land owned by your friend, so you have a legal right of easement to the cottage, both to give you the right to drive/walk over your neighbours land, and also to lay and access services. It will also need to make clear who is responsible for maintaining any driveway or track over your neighbours land to your cottage. That document will need to be lodged with the land registry.

Just as an example - My cottage is on land behind my neighbour's house (it was originally built for the original owner's parents to live in). When I started to buy the house it turned out that legal access had never been granted, and this was not picked up when the house was previously sold. So I had no legal right to drive or walk along the drive on my neighbours land, it get to my house which is at the end of that drive. This meant that the house was 'landlocked' (google this). It took a year to sort this out because the original parties had moved away (and in a couple of cases had died). Fortunately my now neighbours were very helpful and cooperated fully, but it could so easily have been a different story.

So it is something that you will need to deal with at the outset.

Moving on from that - since this cottage is a gift, it is likely that you may be expected to pay your own and your neighbours legal costs, so you will need to budget for this.

jackyann

I hope you can sort this out OP. Daisy's post reminds me of a house we looked at once.
The "ransome strip" was probably a foot wide - barely a single step, but it ran across the front & down the side of the property that adjoined the public highway. So - no right of access to the house unless & until the owners of that tiny piece of land (lost in the mists of time!) could be found or some sort of agreement drawn up. We walked - and I never found out what happened, although when we drive by, I get the impression it hasn't been sold (have no idea why they bought it or how they cam by ownership of it)