Gifting equity for friends to purchase my BTL

hydesy

Hello,

I've had a BTL property for the last 3 years to which I have been renting to very good friends of mine but I now want to sell.

The house is currently worth est. £140,000 and the mortgage outstanding is £82,000 (58.5% LTV). The lenders terms state a minimum of 70% LTV.

My friends really want to buy the house but won't have the deposit until later this year, in 6-12 months time which unfortunately isn't feasible for me.

Owning that 11.5% LTV above the lenders minimum threshold, potentially worth £16,100, I was wondering if it would be at all possible for me to transfer 5% of this equity as a gift to my friends so that they could apply for a mortgage without the 5% cash deposit they require?

I have read about this in many forums online and it seems to be very popular in the US but there's not so much information from the UK.

One would assume that regardless of where the ownership of equity is derived it serves the same purpose.

Thanks in advance.