Mum wants to buy a BTL with me but is cheap

[Jillybons]

My mum has suggested buying a buy to let together. My mum is retired and has a chunk of savings (not her pension and owns her house outright) and is considering getting a BTL property. I also have a chunk of savings which she knows about, and collectively has suggested that we buy a property to let out and earn some money rather than let our savings sit in ISAs.

We’d both be legal 100% owners (50/50 each) so that’s not the bit that worries me. The part that worries me is that she is incredibly cheap! We recently had a new kitchen put in and asked my DP what it cost (he willingly told her 🤦‍♀️) and she was absolutely shocked at it. It was about an average big new kitchen cost (12k for the record including new fixtures and fittings, new floor and replaster) but to her we have ‘massively overpaid’ and she could have done it for 5k 😂

Aibu to even consider doing this with her?

Btw, I’d steer clear of this plan.

Hmm being honest £12k is a lot for a kitchen if you’re planning to buy to let - it’s not if you’re doing it for yourself and you love it, but I would never spend that on a basic kitchen in somewhere I was renovating. We added a huge extension to a kitchen in a house we purchased and re did the whole kitchen from scratch and the whole lost cost £20k - the kitchen itself cost about £7k (we designed it ourselves with help from Wickes and got all the units from there and then got a local handyman to fit it all). You really don’t need to spend £12k ... but if you think you’re going to end up at loggerheads with her about everything maybe it’s not going to work.

Unless either of you have experience of renting out property, don't do it. Really not worth the hassle, even with the nicest tenants. Self assessment, landlord registration, insurance, gas, legionella, fire/smoke - never ending. I'm down to two properties now and would rather have spent the money and enjoyed it

This. If you get a good tenant and a good full service management company it’s OK, and you may make a little profit with relatively little hassle.

But trying to do it yourself these days is a nightmare unless you know all the rules and regs. I’d only do BTL now for long term with someone else managing it, or several properties a s a full time landlord where you have your own network of plumbers, electricians, builders, gas safety engineers etc.

I have let out my own property on 2 occasions when on an extended work secondment.

It's a lot of hassle with surprisingly little profit.

I know of people I'm looking at you ex BIL who make shedloads of money by doing it on the sly, letting out shitty rooms in terraced houses to immigrants for cash, unregulated, not telling the taxman etc.

I think it works if you can do a lot of repairs yourself and are savvy and clued up about the whole process. My last tenants basically spent their entire time on the phone to the letting agent whinging because the kitchen wasn't new and picking fault in the decor (they wanted the doors painting in a different colour etc).

I'd rather leave my money in an ISA than go through all that hassle again.

12k in you’re own home sounds reasonable. 12k in a rental property would be a waste.

Don’t do it. She she shouldn’t be anyone’s landlord.

I echo comments advising against buy to lets, they are a lot of hassle and a bad tenant can be a nightmare plus exceptionally hard to evict at the moment

Have you looked into investing through companies like Vanguard? When you said ISA, have you been looking at cash ones or stocks and shares ones? It’s far less stressful and can be tax free if you use the ISA wrapper and if you get a fund, you get a mix of shares so you don’t loose everything if one company goes bust.

Doesn’t look like you’ll agree-fwiw, if you’re thinking about this project in terms of putting a 12k kitchen in a btl, you’re not likely to make any money (other than the increase in house value) so I suspect your mum might actually be in the right on this one! (Though still rude about your own kitchen)