Considering buying a 2-bed house with loft to function as a 3-bed

[uptheladder]

Can't seem to find any 3-bed properties in areas we remotely want to live in for the mortgage we can get.

We've seen a 2-bed semi-detached house in an area that we really like and we could afford the mortgage but cannot go over its Home Report value (Scotland). It's been on the market for 3 months now which is quite a long time given the current crazy market in this part of the world. I think it's overpriced for a 2-bed but it is a popular area. We are considering it as an option if we can get it at its Home Report value but no more.

It has a great attic space that has evidently been used as a bedroom (I've seen photos of it on a previous listing where there are two single beds up there and a desk/computer) There's a built-in wardrobe, two windows, laminate flooring and a very steep and narrow, carpeted staircase leads up to it from a cupboard off the larger front bedroom of the house. The house also has a garage and a bit of cellar storage so it really appeals to us as we have accumulated so much stuff.

We have two tween/teenage children and are debating whether we could live with us up in the attic and have our DD in the bedroom where we would need to walk through to access the stairs to the loft. She's a heavy sleeper and we thought that if we were a bit creative with shelving/wardrobes we could fence-off an area or even use curtain tracking to give her a bit of privacy and just leave a clear 'corridor' for us to access the staircase.

In the future we could build a partition wall (no planning permission required?) to create a proper private bedroom at the front but I don't see us ever having the financial wherewithal to go the full-hog and get the attic floor reinforced, building regs for a more practical staircase, etc. Obviously we would never be able to declare it as a 3rd bedroom if we sold it on.

Reading back this sounds absolutely insane doesn't it?! I think it shows how desperate we are getting Thoughts appreciated anyway.

That's what we bought, also scotland. Although they had sectioned off a part of one bedroom with a wall for the stairs. There was no planning regs on the loft room so couldn't be called a third bedroom. It was set up as a bedroom and we were told by the people that lived in the house that it was their sons room. We quickly realised there was no way anyone was sleeping up there comfortably. There was no insulation on the roof so the wind howled through the rafters, it was insulated as normal on the ceiling but the roof was just boarded over and papered. We had to move our oldest out the room and was back to sharing with my youngest until we had it all insulated, basically had to redo the full loft conversion. So check the roof is insulated first

Yes I was wondering about the insulation myself. I noticed there was no heating up there in the photo that showed it as a bedroom as there was a plug-in radiator visible.

I am actually looking at another property nearby that is a terrace house that is being advertised as a 3-bed (with a Home Report value that is 25k less than the 2-bed semi-detached) All the houses in the terrace have the same design and a decent attic space that most have used as a bedroom since they moved in. I am worried that if we get an offer accepted we will go a long way down the road until the conveyancer declares that it shouldn't really be sold on as having a 3rd bedroom.

Some of the properties on the road have been sold as 2-beds with attic space but there's previous form for at least one other house in the past 3 years having been advertised as a 3 bed. It's a lovely, rather compact but newly refurbished house, with a proper staircase up to the attic bedroom with landing space at the top and doors and the bedroom has been partitioned but I'm still suspicious! Chatting speculatively with a few conveyancing solicitors there has been talk of lodging affadavits with the Deeds declaring that the job has been done to standard and also indemnity insurances. The trouble is the conversions have often been done well over 20 years ago and there often isn't any associated paperwork.

I just wish I could afford a decent 3-bed that doesn't need rewiring, new roof, new central heating, new kitchen/bathroom, woodworm treatment etc...!

Things like this can later invalidate home insurance and your mortgage if a lender would allow it in the first place. I wouldn't risk it.

So there would be 2 things to consider that I personally have had problems with before.

I had a 2 bed house with 2 really young children and was considering doing the loft out as a bedroom. I decided against it though because as the children would have grown (obviously) the living space downstairs wouldn't have been big enough.

So I then looked around a larger house with an already done loft room. It was towards the end of the summer and it clearly had no form of heating up there. It was already freezing cold in the beginning of September