Buying a house with a flat, questions

dreamsndreams

Hi All

Apologies for my naivety beforehand (first time buyer) but I have a hypothetical i'd like to ask about.

My partner and I live in a house that is separated into 3 flats. The two of us live in one, there is another tenant downstairs and the other flat is currently vacant. There is a possibility we will be able to purchase the building with a view to combining the top 2 flats for ourselves and keeping the downstairs as a separate flat with occupying tenant.

Because we don't plan to combine the entire building into a single dwelling am I right in thinking that we won't be able to get a residential mortgage for this? The other tenant is somebody we know so there would be no disruption on their part.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks

G_M

So to be clear.

* this is England/Wales?
* the building has a freehold Title - you know who owns this and they are willing to sell?
* top flat has a leasehold Title - you know who owns this and they are willing to sell?
* middle flat has a leasehold Title - you know who owns this and they are willing to sell?
* bottom flat has a leasehold Title - in which you have no interest? (or do you plan to buy this lease also but keep the tenants?)

I imagine you would have to buy the two leases separately (even if the same person owns both). One on a residential mortgage (perhaps woth the freehold at the same time if owned by the same seller), the other on a BTL or Development or 2nd home mortgage (paying the additional 3% SDLT for a 2nd home.

You'd then need Planning Consent for the conversion.

And the mortgage lender's consent - which would probably not be an issue provided the value of the converted (now single unit) 2 flats was sufficient to satisfy a residential morgage provided.

eddddy

It could be a lot simpler than G_M suggests. (Or it may not be!)

It may be a single freehold building, which is divided into 3 flats, which the owner rents out on ASTs individually. So no leases involved.

If that's the case, you can certainly buy the freehold building, and reconfigure/convert it into 2 flats (subject to planning consent).

Once converted, you could create a lease for the flat you want to live in and get a mortgage. (And you could create a lease for the other flat as well, if you want.)


But you wouldn't get a mortgage until your flat was converted and habitable. So you'd have to find the money from somewhere else to buy the building and do the conversion work first.

G_M

Indeed. Hence all my bullet points came with ?s !

Can't realy advise without knowing all the relevant the circumstances.