Sale falling through - what shall we do with this complete turkey of a flat?

Mnd

Or John Lock

LandyAndy

LandyAndy wrote: »

How much is 'half'?

If it's £250k I can see his point. If it's £25k not so much.

ginger_chocolate wrote: »

Just for info - the flat was bought in 2003 for £100,000. The offer we accepted was for £94000 (a typical flat in this area would go for £130000). It's difficult to tell what it will actually sell for. I may be being a bit melodramatic with the 'half the price' comment to be fair....

In that case I would definitely cut my losses and go to auction.

ginger_chocolate

hazyjo wrote: »

How many years left on the lease? If say a 999 ish lease, no worries. But if it was a 99 or so, that will also start to become yet another issue with it!

71 years left - so even without the maintenance/management issue, there is already a restricted (but not empty) pool of lenders. We were willing to entertain paying to extend the lease (as we can at least do this without the co-operation of the other leaseholders), but as it won't solve the maintenance issue which is what the lenders are really antsy about, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of point.

I told you it was a turkey...

Looking at people's advice I feel as if we should put it back on the market for cash buyers only for a month or so before we go to auction. In the meantime we'd reapply for a larger mortgage on the property we want to buy and basically treat the sale and the purchase as two completely separate matters. Then hopefully once the PITA flat sells we have a lump sum available to pay off our new mortgage. (Now I just need to persuade OH).

Out of interest, would you put it back on the market at the original asking price, or lower it slightly? And if so, by how much?

ginger_chocolate

Think of it like a rental - the potential loss and the cost of renting it since 2003 offset each other.

This is an excellent point that I hadn't previously considered. We are considerably better off now than we would be if we'd been renting for fifteen years.

lisyloo

Unless anyone can think of a reason we should absolutely not do this?

Will you have to pay extra stamp duty on your second home?

pjcox2005

If you do keep it, factor in the additional stamp duty (extra 3%) you'll pay for buying a second property. You don't want to be going for an 85% mortgage and then realise you're squeezed further as the stamp duty land tax will be higher than expected.

quantumlobster

Auction it for £80K and consider it money well-spent on being able to move on with your life.

ginger_chocolate

pjcox2005 wrote: »

If you do keep it, factor in the additional stamp duty (extra 3%) you'll pay for buying a second property. You don't want to be going for an 85% mortgage and then realise you're squeezed further as the stamp duty land tax will be higher than expected.

That's a good point. I think we can still manage but it will squeeze us a bit. I just really don't want to lose the property we're buying or be stuck living in this flat for god knows how much longer.

CarrieVS

Provided you contrive to roast the turkey within three years you should get the additional stamp duty back so in the long run that part of it hopefully won't be a loss. But of course it's still something you have to find the cash for at the time of the purchase.

Thrugelmir

ginger_chocolate wrote: »

71 years left - so even without the maintenance/management issue, there is already a restricted (but not empty) pool of lenders.

No long until it tips into next to no mortgage lenders.

The one certainty is that the situation is unlikely to improve for the better.