Renting house aiming to buy

mercedes125

Been looking at buying a house we are really interested in the one we have looked at but its higher price than we can borrow so the owner said that we could rent it for a while and the rent would reduce the amount owing for the value of the house . But how would this work we didn't really understand exactly what he meant , and how would it work .

MisterB1959

there is one scheme where you actually pay more than the rent, but the additional money goes into a 'savings account' - which apparently eventually becomes large enough to be the actual deposit.

Guest101

MisterB1959 wrote: »

there is one scheme where you actually pay more than the rent, but the additional money goes into a 'savings account' - which apparently eventually becomes large enough to be the actual deposit.

Read the small print, if u get evicted u forfeit the savings. An abuse of s21. Perfectly legal...

Pixie5740

Why is the vendor suggesting this rather than accepting an offer from another buyer who can buy it now? Is it perhaps because they think the house is worth more than it actually is and there are no other interested buyers? How much of a difference is there between the asking price and what you can afford?

I can't quite remember but I'm sure there's some sort of massive catch with rent to buy schemes involving tax or something. I'll have a think and then come back if it pops into my head.

mercedes125

Thanks for replys , I know the vendors are having a new house built he is in the building trade himself and also owns a few other houses in the area.
We would be £20,000 short of the asking price
He made it sound like all our rent money would just be saved up and knocked off the price when we come to buy, and this would be done through his solicitor.
We are thinking of arranging a 2 nd viewing to speak to him about this but thought if I could find any information out before hand then I could say what I know . We really do like the house it's just what we are wanting , I know if all fails we will find another in time .

ViolaLass

How much would the rent be? Because you could end up having to rent it for a long time.

e.g. say it's £500 a month and the owner allows all of that to go towards buying the house (but why would he?) That's 40 months of renting to make up the difference.

mercedes125

ViolaLass wrote: »

How much would the rent be? Because you could end up having to rent it for a long time.

e.g. say it's £500 a month and the owner allows all of that to go towards buying the house (but why would he?) That's 40 months of renting to make up the difference.

The rent would be £600 , I know I can't imagine all our rent money getting saved up because it would be like we are living there for free.
We would obviously offer less than the asking price .

ViolaLass

mercedes125 wrote: »

We would obviously offer less than the asking price .

You can offer whatever you want - I would want an asking price defined in some way before starting this otherwise what's to stop him upping it again?