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Renovating for Buy to Let Martin Roberts- TV Property Expert, Author and presenter of ‘Homes under the Hammer’ offers advice and guidance on all things property related My ‘Top 20 Hints and Tips’ on renovating shrewdly (to be continued next week) are: 1. Get to know the area where you are considering buying. What are its positives and negatives? Who generally lives there? What facilities and features in a property are these people going to want to see? Choose the type and location of a property that will best suit these end users. 2. Pitch your level of refurbishment to be in keeping with the general tone of the area. This rule holds good for both setting too high and too low a standard. 3. Don’t try and achieve everything at once. If you are investing with rental in mind, then you may find that a modest redecoration job will serve the purpose for the time being and get you some cashflow working. Larger scale alterations could be postponed until future years once you’ve had some return from the property. 4. Decide on the use of the property i.e. long term residential let to families, student lets, corporate lets etc. Get lots of comparables of similar properties nearby so you can see what eventual rents you can expect to achieve. 5. Look at the potential use of the accommodation. Can you create extra income by possibly dividing a larger room up into smaller areas? This is particularly relevant if you are looking at student lets since you will likely rent out the property on a ‘per room’ basis than the property as a whole. 6. Get a rough idea of costs of any work you want doing by experienced professionals. Make sure you seek at least 3 different opinions on any work that will take up say more than 10% of your overall budget. Factor in any purchase costs and running costs of your mortgage during the time when the work is being done. 7. Add in a contingency of 15% of the costs of work plus an amount to cover running costs if the property does not rent straight away. 8. Look at the size of the problems and be honest with yourself about whether you have the experience and budget to take them on. 9. Be mindful of regulations and the law. Are the works you intend to carry out going to require planning permission or building regulations? As a landlord you will have a moral responsibility to your tenants and adhere to fire and safety regulations as well. 10.Be canny about where you do spend the money. Kitchens and bathrooms are key but sometimes a professional clean up of a kitchen or bathroom i.e new doors on kitchen cabinets might be all that is required. When it comes to bathroom suites – go for white. Keep it simple. Martin’s Property Clinic: Does no Title Deeds mean No Deal? Ruth Jones asks: “I’m interested in buying a property that has come onto the market as a probate sale and I’ve discovered that there are no Title Deeds. What are the implications of this if I buy the house”. Years ago, the Title Deeds were physically held by property owners to prove that they do actually legally own a house. If the property was mortgaged, it was common practise that the Mortgagor (the bank or building society lending the money) would hold the Title Deeds until the loan was repaid, however, in the digital age, the importance of being able to locate or produce physical title deeds has diminished considerably. All registered titles are now held electronically by the Land Registry, i.e. the title deeds are now stored on the Land Registry's computers. This means that provided there were Title Deeds at some point, you can obtain copies of them whenever you want quite quickly and simply by contacting the Land Registry and paying a fee to have a copy produced. What Constitutes Title Deeds? There are 3 main documents comprising the title deeds: 1. The Property Register states the name and address of the owner, lists any mortgages or charges on the property, the purchase price, details of covenants and easements and any other relevant details. 2. The Title Plan is a large scale plan based on the Ordnance Survey and shows the property in relation to other properties so you can see exactly where the property is located and it’s boundaries. 3. Registered Documents may be conveyances, transfers, agreements, deeds, licences etc. Usually they contain immense detail and come with attached plans that the Land Registry consider necessary to better describe the property. If you wish to replace lost deeds you can apply for a copy of each of the above from the Land Registry (www.landregistry.gov.uk) by sending them the appropriate form and fee (if there are no Registered Documents that part of your fee will be refunded). In the case of Ruth’s purchase, the risk to her of purchasing the house with no Title Deeds,, is that there is always a chance (albeit small) that someone in the future could turn up and say that the property is on their land. Without having registered Title, this would leave Ruth with an upsetting and potentially costly situation to sort out. She could therefore take out a special type of Insurance to cover her in the unlikely event of this happening. Even if there are Title Deeds you can also protect yourself against anything untoward occurring with regard to Title, boundaries, access rights, previous planning consents etc in the future. You can get a special type of indemnity insurance to cover for losses arising out of a defect in the Title of a property. This means that if something termed an ‘Adverse Right’ is enforced and the consequences of this are that the property has to be modified, have structures removed or in the worse case, pulled down, then the insurance policy will pay out to cover losses and expenses incurred (including compensation for loss in market value). To find out more about Martin Roberts and for property deals and advice visit www.martinroberts.co.uk |
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