Buying the house I currently rent

Mikehextall

Hi,

I currently live in a 3 bedroom rented property with my wife and two dogs in Leicester, we were very fortunate to find a private rented property that allowed us to have dogs in the first place. We pay £575 rent per month and having lived in rented property before this house is not up to rentable standards however the landlord is "mates" with the letting agency he uses so all is good as far as hes concerned. As I said they allow us to have dogs and pretty much allow us to do as we like with the house in terms of decorating etc so we dont complain.

However when we approached him to replace some of the cold single glazed windows last year he replaced two of them and told us that money was very tight and could not afford to do anymore, he also scrimped on a new boiler previously.

My wife is expecting a baby in 6 months and I want the house we live in to be of a good standard but we love the house were in purely for location and also has a big garden for the dogs. How would/should I go about making an offer to the landlord to buy the property and take over responsibilities of replacing doors, windows, carpets etc?

We do not have enough money at the moment for a mortgage so were thinking of maybe a part let part buy offer? Or maybe taking out a loan of maybe £10000 and starting him off with that, any suggestions of what to do? We really dont want to move as we wont find anywhere that lets us have pets.

kiddy_guy

You've answered your own question.

You can't afford a mortgage, so you can't buy it. £10k is absolutely nothing, given you'll pay him almost £6.5k in rent per year, so all you'd be doing is pre-paying rent on a loan basis, for which you'd be paying interest.

Save up and buy a property properly.

Mikehextall

kiddy_guy wrote: »

You've answered your own question.

You can't afford a mortgage, so you can't buy it. £10k is absolutely nothing, given you'll pay him almost £6.5k in rent per year, so all you'd be doing is pre-paying rent on a loan basis, for which you'd be paying interest.

Save up and buy a property properly.

You have just told me exactly what I already knew, In was asking for advice on how to go about making the landlord an offer the suits both his and our needs financially.

Kayalana99

Has the LL ever gave you reason he would want to sell? Tend to see properties as an investment and unless you were willing to pay market value at least the LL may not even want to sell.

He rents it out for an income and some even do it for thier retirement. It might not be as easy as even being able to afford it.

*If* he REALLY wanted to sell then you could perhaps sort a part buy/part let....but that would only seem benificial to him if he really wanted to sell the property...otherwise its buy outright at a good price or he will just simply say no.

pmlindyloo

Forget buying the house - you can't get a mortgage yet and as already said the loan idea is a no goer.

What makes you think the landlord will sell anyway? If he hasn't said anything them don't speak to him as it may put ideas into his head!

If you think that he will sell eventually then have a look at similar properties and see what they are priced at. Then speak to a mortgage broker and find out how much deposit you need and how much of a mortgage you could get.

In other words 'do your homework'.

At the moment you are grasping at straws.

If you will be in a position to get a mortgage then you need to start saving like mad for the deposit. Do some extra hours at work - take on a second job - reduce all expenditure - go for it.

Also consider how much decorating etc you are doing on your current place. Although I understand your wish to live in a lovely house you do not own it and everything you do and the money you spend just benefits the landlord.

The landlord does not have to give you double glazing and a specific type of boiler. As long as he is meeting his requirements as a landlord then there is nothing more he has to do.

Forget about this particular house for the present - just concentrate on saving for your own place. There are plenty of properties out there.

tim123456789

If this is just about heating costs and decoration get a "green deal" advisor in to see what improvements can be funded out of the electric bill.

The LL doesn't currently have to "allow" these changes but in a couple of years he will so he may be persuaded to do it early

sumosami

We've had the same problem renting with pets. However we have found over the years that although most of the ads for rented properties state no pets, if you approach them & offer to pay an extra 'pet deposit' amny accept. Not all obviously but we have managed to find a few landlords over the years who have been willing to accept the offer. Its always worth asking

bob2

Part-let, part-buy (i.e. shared ownership) deals are offered by many housing associations. In those cases the procedures and division of responsibilites would be clearly set out the legal documentation.

Trying to make a similar arrangement with a small private landlord would be likely be fraught with difficulties - and advantages over renting would be limited unless you could purchase a substantial proportion of the property.

E.g. if the house was valued at £200,000 and you used £10,000 to purchase a share you would now only own 5% of the property. You'd still need to pay rent on the remaining 95% so expect your rental payments to only fall from £575 pcm to £546.25 pcm.

You would then presumably also have to pay a share of building insurance and other costs.

And then if you needed new windows who would pay for them? You'd be crazy to pay for them in full owning only 5% of the property - and why would the landlord be any more inclined to pay than he is now?

kiddy_guy

Mikehextall wrote: »

You have just told me exactly what I already knew, In was asking for advice on how to go about making the landlord an offer the suits both his and our needs financially.

But his needs are to have a property he rents out for money. Yours is to buy a property cheaply without having a mortgage. Those are intrinsically different, and I can't see a half way house.

I want to buy a Ferrari for £5. Ferrari want to sell me one for £200000.

You tell me if you can find a middle ground that makes us both happy... :rotfl: