WIBU to buy neighbouring flat and live in both?

[TinselTimes]

We love our flat and the area, we don’t want to move but do need more space.

Our next door neighbours have told us they’re planning to sell later this year.

We could afford to buy their flat as well.

There’s no chance the freeholder would let us knock through walls, they would have to stay officially separate flats. But we could use the extra space for a home office, and a spare room, and a playroom, and just have more space generally.

Is this totally crazy? Pros and cons?

It’s a ridiculous idea. You would have to have your keys on you permanently. You’d get locked out all the time. How are you children going to get between the playroom in one flat to the other flat? What if they’re in the playroom and you need to go to your bedroom, you’d just leave them in a separate flat. Not to mention the cost.

Several houses we have looked at have full second kitchens next to the first. The main kitchen flows into the dining and entertaining areas. The second kitchen is enclosed and behind a door. That way you can make a mess in the back kitchen and entertain guests from your pristine kitchen. It is quite ridiculous, but very appealing.

This is literally the most bonkers thing I have ever heard of. Why would you want to live your life like that, why?

Just to say, if you were to make structural alterations without freeholder consent and they found out, you will be in breach of your lease and at serious risk of losing it. Would be a very painful court case I would think. Our neighbour ended up in court for paying £7 less ground rent than he should have (he was overseas at the time and didn’t realise the error in the transfer, it was what he’d paid the year before). Vile freeholder tried to reclaim the lease! It got thrown out but structural alterations would be a whole different ball game.

Are you sure you can’t lnock it through? A friend of DS lives in a huge flat in one of those weird shaped blocks. When you go through the front door it’s like the tardis and you just keep walking around and through corridors. I couldnt get my head around the layout as the front door is next to the next door front door a - which I now know is t a door at all as the 2 flats have been made into a massive flat.

I dream of buying upstairs or downstairs from us and having a staircase!

Some friends of ours owned the first house after the corner one in a terraced road. They bought the first house on the other side of the corner house (so in a different road).
The corner house had no back garden at all because the houses on either side met at the back. Friends joined the two houses at the back corner, but still had 2 separate front doors in 2 different roads.
They had great fun when people were doing house to house calls, eg charity or Jehovahs Witness and the door was answered by the same person twice...

We've considered this but in our situation the flat door was interior and facing ours with a communal front door so would have worked as the other flats had a different entrance.

Your set up sounds less doable

God I would love this! A flat for teenagers, and a white, immaculate flat for me.

Must check my lottery tickets 🙏

I understand what your friend means. It could be that the plumbing for the upper floors is in the space between the common wall of the two flats. Plus you'd might have electrical wiring or load bearing beams. It may not be practical (or possible) to cut a big enough hole to frame up and install a door without moving plumbing or doing some rewiring. And generally load bearing beams can't be moved.

Yes if it includes a forfeiture clause if he finds out you could lose both flats

You need to find out if the following is possible

1. Strucuturally it is doable
2. If yes planning permission would be granted
3. If yes that the freeholder would permit it (need legal advice here)
4. If (and its a big if) all of this is a go that your mortgage lender would be ok with it

So I dont think that knocking through a wall is likely

If you do want it as a property without knocking down walls you need to look at whether you will get a mortgage on it and how feasible it is to live like that

Houses will be less involved I think because there is no freeholder/leaseholder and no surrounding properties that might be hit when work is down but even so its difficult and does cause the properties to lose value

Thank you for the explanation about the wall - yes DH and I were just looking at it and I think we would struggle to knock through without having to move a lot of communal pipes etc and obv that would increase cost and be less likely to get freeholder consent.

The idea of a secret passageway between them is really appealing but it would prob be too much of a risk really.

So I think we need to seriously work out the logistics of using the flat as a separate space.

I liked the idea above of putting it on Airbnb, that way we could cover some of the extra costs.

Oooh this would be so cool! Good investment to have one right next to you even if you air b n b it. The idea of a secret passage way is also super cool!

I am biased, we live in a cottage which was 2 x two up two downs from the Victorian era. It always devalues properties to make two into one but it's a fab extension all the same.

We bought the house next door and knocked through. We didn't need planning permission, as weren't making actual changes to the building's size or exterior. We did need building regs and structural surveys etc.

I really wouldn't do any work without permission, you could get into huge trouble if you hit any of those pipes etc. You wouldn't be covered by your insurance..

While it sounds good, it's a pretty expensive way of getting an extra room or two that wouldn't really feel part of the house. Air B&B might help, but it's a lot of faff. Surely it would make more sense to just put the money from both flats into something else. Something must come up sooner or later.

I live like this!!!! I have a coachhouse and DP has a first floor flat adjoining (so you have to go outside to go between).

I've just had a baby so the flat was ideal for all our visitors to come and stay or to meet the baby. It was great because I didn't have to worry about keeping the house immaculate for visitors and could leave whenever I was ready.

That is the only thing it has been good for. Other than that it is a massive pain and expense. In addition to what is mentioned above we also pay double service charge and double estates charge. Things always get 'borrowed' and taken to the other house and then when I want them you can guarantee they are in the other house and I'm in my PJs and it's raining outside!

We cant knock through due to the leasehold but to be honest the layout would be weird if we did or would be extremely expensive to move into a more practical layout.

If I intended to work from home or rent as an air bnb I would consider keeping it.

We're in the process of selling them both and buying a bigger place which is quite stressful because we have to worry about the sale of both of them going through x

Ooh, if next door comes up,for sale, I also going to do this!

It is a pretty expensive way to get the extra space, it’s true, but there really don’t seem to be any suitable larger flats in our area and we’re settled with schools etc so it might be our best option!

DH could work mainly from home if we had an office for him, which would be great.

It is just next door and in a secure block (we have a concierge visitors have to come past, and people need a key to get into our corridor) so from a practical perspective I’m not worried about needing to walk between the two flats.

Thanks for all the advice everybody :)

I was looking to do this with houses. 2 victorian terraces. Together would create amazing 4 bed and for 2/3s of a normal 4 bed house price😂
In tge end we just bought normal 3 bed because it would either be double council tax or spending a lot on merging it and changing paperwork with land registry.

If you can afford the extra costs, it will be fab as your children get older, especially as you know the communal area is safe! I’d definitely go for it!

Slightly different point... but freeholders have the right to manage and right to buy out their freeholder. You'd need 51% of owners to get together and go through the legal process. It will cost money but owning the freehold will raise the value of the flat and give you the right to apply to knock through and combine properties - cutting down on double council tax and so on. It could well be worth it if you see yourself living there for the long run and think your neighbours would be up for it.

You'd need the help of a specialist property lawyer too.

Owners have the right to manage and purchase freehold obviously. Not freeholders who have that already.

Oh and last point - you're not buying the entire freehold yourself. You'd be buying 1/64 if there are 64 flats in your block, for example.

Silene I cant imagine buying out the freehold would help - I would not want two flats merged if I lived in the type of building that the OP lives in simply because it could effect me

I imagine there is very little chance of the two flats being able to merge or an internal door created.

So the OP needs to figure out if two separate flats works for them: the only stumbling blocks here would be mortgage and insurance if they are using it as an office.

No, she'd still have to go through planning and building control. But says her freeholder would reject a request to combine outright before it even got that far so it's a way of getting over that hurdle.

I love fantasising that the DC could live next door when they grew up. Course the reality is they most likely wouldn't want to, but still a nice thought. And the teenage pad idea is brilliant. I'd absolutely investigate and go for it if the sums stacked up.

If there was a fire, would having a connecting door without planning permission make your house insurance not valid?

Work out what the extra stamp duty might be, that might kill the idea stone dead.