Concrete pre-fabricated house.Mortgage?

Gastines2

Any suggestions welcome. A friend has a two storey house built in the concrete slab pre-fabricated style,he bought this house cash, and is now trying to sell. No problems with the building ,on a small estate of similar houses with a nice green etc.The Agents are telling him that it is not possible to get a mortgage on this type of property and this is obviously causing concern. Any members know of any lenders who are able to deal with this?

lemon26

There are specialist brokers out there that do mortgages for concrete houses - I take it that your friend has a pre-reinforced concrete house (PRC)? If so, he might be able to find out what type of house he has, then go from there. Google something like 'PRC mortgages'. However, if your friend has the PRC certificate (proves remedial works were correctly carried out), there might be a mainstream lender who'll loan.

I had a bit of a nightmare selling my previous house (PRC, Dorran type) as the local authority (who'd had the remedial works done when they owned the property) had lost the PRC certificate. Then, as soon as you mention 'specialist' lenders, the buyer may think it's too much trouble and run away...certainly 4 potential purchasers of my house did. In the end I sold for cash at a substantially lower amount as no mainstream lender would lend against my property.

Hope this helps

Werdnal

These properties are classed as "non-standard construction" and as such are often advertised for cash-buyers only as mortgages can be tricky. That is not to say its impossible to find lenders who will take them, but they are thin on the ground. There are various types of concrete build, and your friend could do with finding out which specific type his property is - Cornish Unit, Airey, etc - look around online as there are sites which give the characterisitcs of each type as a guide. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with them as houses, but they were often used as Social/Council housing back in the 1940's - 1960's to cope with need for quick to build, cheap housing, and the materials of construction can degrade over time, meaning they are considered more of a risk. The value will always be affected, although there are remedial works for some types, and if done correctly by a certificated specialist, they can be made mortgageable.

Its not only lenders who can run a mile, as some insurers won't tough NSC properties either - tell me about it, my property is around 300 years old and partly Cob, so I have to get specialist insurance as the normal "high street" insurers would touch it!