Q I’m in my early 30s and live with my parents while saving for my first house, which I will be looking to buy in the next year or two.
My parents live in a large semi-detached house that they extended to twice the size of the original three-bed in the early 90s. They are both in their 60s now and thinking about retiring but are held back as they still have a mortgage to pay and aren’t keen to move out of the area they’ve lived in for more than 30 years. They’ve recently proposed the idea of splitting the house into two separate addresses, keeping the extended part of the house for themselves and selling me the original part of the house. Both parts of the house would be a good size and have parking and garden access, so I think we meet all the criteria for size and space that the local council would have. The sale would provide enough to pay off their remaining mortgage, making it possible for them to retire. It would also make it easier for me to get on the property ladder as they would give me a small discount on the price (property prices are high in this area).
I’ve looked it up and seen there are a lot of articles about subdividing a house into flats but not much about subdividing into two separate houses. Would the house being semi-detached cause issues with subdividing? Is their mortgage lender likely to protest against the change even if the sale pays off the remaining mortgage?
If this worked out it would be a brilliant advantage to my parents and myself but while my parents are fairly confident and are beginning to think of having plans drawn up and planning out what would internal work would be needed to split the property (bricking up doorways between the halves, splitting the water, gas and electric systems, etc), I’m nervous that they could start to invest money in this plan only to run into major hurdles later. Is this a feasible plan or are we daydreaming to think it will work?
VP
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A I don’t think you are daydreaming but I do think you need to do a bit more homework. First, your parents need to talk to their solicitor to check that their current freehold can be split. If it can, the next job is to talk to their mortgage lender, ideally with a realistic idea of what their eventual property will be worth (so it would also be an idea to talk to an estate agent). If this is more than their outstanding mortgage, their mortgage lender may be amenable to the idea of splitting the property into two but if it is less, it will be a no-no.
If the lender is prepared to let them go ahead, the next job is to get plans drawn up to apply for planning permission, so they will need to pay for an architect’s expertise. According to the quick guide to splitting a property published by Lawdit Solicitors, you will also need “detailed plans showing exactly what part of the property is being taken out of the original title” to submit to the Land Registry as part of an application to split the freehold into two (which is only possible if a property is to be split vertically). As well as submitting plans, you will also need to explain why you want to split the title. “There is no guarantee that your application will be successful”, the guide says, “as the Land Registry will only split the title if they deem it to be necessary”.
