House Buying Quadary

Lifes_Grand_Plan

Morning all,

Bit of a quandary with a house that we like that I hope you can all advise on?

A week ago we viewed a "house" that we really liked. I say "house" because it has been used as business premises for about 5 - 10 years but was originally a house and we would love to convert it back. It has been sat empty since it went on the market nearly 18 months ago!

The place has been on the market April 2014 and the price has slowly come down from £500,000 to the current price of £460,000. We seem to get different stories from the EA every time we speak to one of them but the stories so far are that they "had an investor interested but she had to sell some properties first" and we have also seen some plans in the building that were going to turn the place into some kind of hostel.... but ultimately the last offer they turned down on the place was September last year and the RightMove listing states "Open to offers!!!!"

Anyway on the advice of the EA, we made a list of all the work that we thought would need doing to get the place back into habitable condition. We stopped going in the end because everything was so unknown.....

Anyway we asked the EA to sound out the buyer about offers in the region of £400,000 which they said they would do. We advised that we weren't investors and didn't have masses of money to spend, we would be moving into it with virtually no budget to do it up and would just do little bits as soon as we could from our salaries each month.

Anyway we spoke to the EA today and they said they didn't bother speaking to the vendor in the end because he had already turned down a higher offer back in September and they "have investors interested".....

We really like the house but we know it is a huge risk because we don't know if the boiler is any good, if the roof is sound, if it might have damp, it certainly needs a new kitchen (not even one in there at the moment), bathroom, needs all of the old windows restoring...

Should we just submit a formal offer to the EA which they have to put forward?

Or should we try and contact the vendor directly? (we know who he is but haven't met him yet as the EA does the viewings).

The issue I have is if we go via the EA then they don't sound like they will put forward our case in a positive light and probably recommend he rejects the offer.....

Any advice greatly received.....

Pixie5740

Would you need a mortgage if you were to buy this property as without a kitchen the property is most likely unmortgageable in its present condition.

If you are cash buyer then if your offer is accepted surely you'd get a survey carried out if you're concerned about big ticket items like the roof?

You could always submit an offer to the EA and CC the vendor if you are really concerned the EA won't put your offer to the vendor.

Tixy

I would put in your offer to the EA.

I don't think asking the EA to 'sound out' their vendor is likely to have been a good step, it gives the impression that you may be prepared to offer more.

If you try to offer to the vendor direct then I imagine the first thing they will do is contact their EA anyway.

Lifes_Grand_Plan

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Would you need a mortgage if you were to buy this property as without a kitchen the property is most likely unmortgageable in its present condition.

If you are cash buyer then if your offer is accepted surely you'd get a survey carried out if you're concerned about big ticket items like the roof?

You could always submit an offer to the EA and CC the vendor if you are really concerned the EA won't put your offer to the vendor.

It's that really true? The place has a kitchen sink, but having been an office with no requirement for a kitchen as such, they probably just had a kettle and microwave. We do need a mortgage do if we couldn't mortgage it then it's straight out of the window.

Lifes_Grand_Plan

Tixy wrote: »

I would put in your offer to the EA.

I don't think asking the EA to 'sound out' their vendor is likely to have been a good step, it gives the impression that you may be prepared to offer more.

If you try to offer to the vendor direct then I imagine the first thing they will do is contact their EA anyway.

I don't think the EA is in any doubt that we can't afford loads more.... The sounding out was very much along the lines of " this is all we can afford, if we're miles out then we won't bother with a formal offer because we don't want to offend the vendor".....

Pixie5740

Lifes_Grand_Plan wrote: »

It's that really true? The place has a kitchen sink, but having been an office with no requirement for a kitchen as such, they probably just had a kettle and microwave. We do need a mortgage do if we couldn't mortgage it then it's straight out of the window.

A property has to be habitable in order for you to get a mortgage. Having a kitchen is part of being habitable. If you have a mortgage broker it would be worth checking with him/her whether or not what is currently in the property would be enough to get a mortgage.

Rambosmum

Some mortgage companies are more lenient on what is considered 'habitable' than others - I'd certainly be sounding it out with a mortgage adviser/ your mortgage provider first.

You are also unlikely to get a residential mortgage, would need to get a business mortgage (harder to get, larger deposit, more restrictions).

As it's a business you may not be able to move in to it until you have confirmed change of use with the council, which they may not grant.

So before spending money on a survey or solicitor or even making an offer I'd speak to a mortgage provider and the local council!

Tixy

I think a kitchen only needs a kitchen sink to be classed as habitable with most lenders for a residential mortgage.

And in terms of a bathroom I think a working toilet is usually the basic requirement.

I don't know if you need to get permission to convert a business premises back in to a residential premises, if you do that might prove more of a barrier to a mortgage?

Rambosmum

Tixy wrote: »

I think a kitchen only needs a kitchen sink to be classed as habitable with most lenders for a residential mortgage.

And in terms of a bathroom I think a working toilet is usually the basic requirement.

I don't know if you need to get permission to convert a business premises back in to a residential premises, if you do that might prove more of a barrier to a mortgage?

You did in Bury 5 years ago. We wanted to buy a house which had been turned in to offices (all used by one business, still looked very much like a house, albeit a run down one). The building was classed a business by the council and we couldn't sleep in it unless we changed it's official use. The council couldn't guarantee that they would grant the change of use, and there is a charge to do so.

As the property didn't have residential permission we couldn't get a residential mortgage. In the end we had to give up.

TBagpuss

Tixy wrote: »

I think a kitchen only needs a kitchen sink to be classed as habitable with most lenders for a residential mortgage.

And in terms of a bathroom I think a working toilet is usually the basic requirement.

I don't know if you need to get permission to convert a business premises back in to a residential premises, if you do that might prove more of a barrier to a mortgage?

It is a change of use so you will need planning permission. It may be worth speaking to your local planning office to see whether it is likely to be possible.

A couple of years ago we sold one of our office buildings to people who have converted it back to a house (although they are now also running a business there, which is not permitted under the planning permission they got, and may be about to bite them in the backside)

When we sold it, the 'kitchen' consisted of a sink and space for a fridge and microwave, tucked into the corner of one of the landings. There were 2 or 3 loos each with a sink, but no bath or shower.
I know tat the process was all quite slow and that they had to shop around for a mortgage, but I don't know whether or to what extent that was due to the type of building (they were rather slow, and not very competent generally. At one point they got quite upset that we wouldn't let them go in and start tearing stuff out before we'd even exchanged contracts, for instance!)

eddddy

Lifes_Grand_Plan wrote: »

The issue I have is if we go via the EA then they don't sound like they will put forward our case in a positive light and probably recommend he rejects the offer.....

That's unlikely. The EA wants to sell the property to earn their commission.

The EA would almost certainly prefer that it sold today for £400k, rather than doing lots more viewings, phoning, advertising for a few more months in the hope of achieving, say, £430k... (... and maybe getting nothing if the vendor moves to another EA in the meantime.)

Your best bet might be to 'chat' with the EA, and ask them what they think is the minimum offer the vendor might accept, and generally find out more about the vendor's mindset etc.