En Bloc garage swap (Charge on mortgage) Advice please.

bikingbarney

Hi all, 

I wonder if you can help, 

We have a garage in a block of garages behind our house. unfortunately ours doesn't back onto our back garden so to get to it entails a walk around the block.

A few sets of neighbors have done garage swaps and as such we have contacted the people who own the garage directly behind our house and and they are more than willing to do a swap.


Ive contacted a solicitor and he has started working through the paperwork but has now sent me this message:

We have obtained copies of the Land Registry documents. You have a mortgage with Halifax by the looks of it. They will need to be involved- have you already approached them ?

They will have to AGREE to taking off their charge on the existing garage on the basis that they take a new charge on the new garage. There should be no problem in them doing this but it will add to the costs and they may charge an admin fee for dealing with this. I cannot speak for them but our costs will be another £250+VAT.

No mortgage on No 42 and so that is straightforward.

My question is: Is it likely to be straightforward with the mortgage company as tis a like for like swap? It may even add value to our house as we would then be able to access our garage direct from our garden.

Is there any other way around it?

Kind regards

Steve

MovingForwards

The lender has to be involved as it's their money the house / garage is secured on.

In theory they could be ok with it, you can't do it without their consent unless you redeem the mortgage, or appropriate portion of the mortgage.

AdrianC

Yes, it probably will be straightforward - there's no real difference as far as they're concerned. They currently have house + garage as security, they'll have house + garage. If anything, it'll be a slight improvement to their security, because it'll be easier to sell with the better-placed garage.

But the paperwork does need to be done, and it will cost to do it.

eddddy

In theory, the mortgage lender may want to instruct a valuer, who may want to do a valuation visit - to make sure that the garage swap doesn't devalue your property. If they did, you'd probably have to cover the cost of that.

But given the simplicity of the change and the COVID situation, they might not insist on that.

Is the garage leasehold, and are you proposing to knock a hole in the back wall to create a door into your garden? If so, you should check the lease to see if that's allowed. If the lease prohibits it, you'd need to take a view on whether to approach the freeholder, or do it anyway.

bikingbarney

eddddy said:

In theory, the mortgage lender may want to instruct a valuer, who may want to do a valuation visit - to make sure that the garage swap doesn't devalue your property. If they did, you'd probably have to cover the cost of that.

But given the simplicity of the change and the COVID situation, they might not insist on that.

Is the garage leasehold, and are you proposing to knock a hole in the back wall to create a door into your garden? If so, you should check the lease to see if that's allowed. If the lease prohibits it, you'd need to take a view on whether to approach the freeholder, or do it anyway.

Thats the idea. 

Access from our garden will likely add value to the house. Next door did the same and the EA valued it at 2-3k higher because of it.

Both garages are freehold.