Combine 2 houses into 1

MidnightWolf3

I am wanting some advice on making two houses into one please. I currently own one semi detached house outright (no mortgage) and am wanting to purchase next door to then make the houses into one. I am finding it difficult to get a mortgage on the house next door. Any advice welcome please. Thank you x:)

davidmcn

Sounds more like one for the Mortgages board and would help if you told us what sort of difficulty you've had so far - you'll need development funding, so tighter criteria and big deposit needed, don't think you'll get anything like a normal residential mortgage.

hazyjo

Unless it's in a street full of large houses and these two are the exception, they're likely to lose value. Twice the size won't mean twice the value. There will be a ceiling price for the road. Hence one reason they won't want to lend: it may decrease the value of each and increase the lender's risk. Their asset will be worth less than the money they lend you.

martindow

There is probably going to be a planning issue to combine the houses and you may well devalue them - two houses will probably be more valuable than the single combined house.

rosyw

This is something I did with my late husband a number of years ago. We raised the money to buy next door by increasing the mortgage on the semi we already had, and bought next door outright. We didn't need planning to convert to a single dwelling, but building regs will come into play for the work needed to knock though.
You do need to consider the property value, unless like us you're not that bothered,just want the space, as others have said, you won't necessarily double the value.
I sold ours after my husband died, the guys that bought it split it into 2 again,they then needed planning consent to convert it back to separate dwellings, by the time they'd finished and sold both they'd lost a fortune,so that's something else to consider if you sell on at a later date.

davidmcn

rosyw wrote: »

This is something I did with my late husband a number of years ago. We raised the money to buy next door by increasing the mortgage on the semi we already had, and bought next door outright. We didn't need planning to convert to a single dwelling, but building regs will come into play for the work needed to knock though.

You'd also need consent from your lender if you were doing it that way - they may well not want to risk repossessing (one half of) a building site.

Gleeful

My parents did this and are splitting them back up to sell, as stated above, the houses are worth more alone than together.

ACG

You are going to struggle with it.

If you are doing things right, you would need a bridging loan to do the work and combine the titles and then remortgage with a residential lender based on the new value.

Although I know people will rarely go down that route, but you will find it difficult because lenders are concerned you will do exactly what you plan to do.

I have only ever placed one of these and that was because it was a flat and the bloke would not have got permission to knock though from the management company in addition to the fact he had no plans to do it anyway - There are lenders who will probably not delve too deep in the fact they are next door, but I as a broker tend to refuse to do them unless they are done properly, otherwise I am just opening myself up from complaints from the customer and lender.

rosyw

davidmcn wrote: »

You'd also need consent from your lender if you were doing it that way - they may well not want to risk repossessing (one half of) a building site.

Funny you should say that, lender was quite happy to give consent, we remortgaged a few years later to switch from an endowment to a straight forward repayment mortgage, the new lender failed to pick up on the fact that the deeds hadn't yet been combined. Solicitor's advice was then to leave well alone as should the worst happen with our finances, they'd have one hell of a game with repossession and their charge only covered half the house!

MidnightWolf3

Thank you everyone.
It’s a house I want to keep and pass down the family. Struggling to mortgage as they say we want to combine houses, no other reason given. Have been told to try cash buy, then combine title deeds, then mortgage as one house. Was hoping there was another way as don’t think I could get that much cash straight up. !!!128542;

konark

Bloke next to me owned both front and rear of a back-to-back pair and wanted to turn them into one through house. Council said NO, I suppose they didn't want to turn 2X council tax into 1X council tax.