Hi all, have a bit of a unique property buying question that is impossible to search for online and get advice for...wondering if there is any advice that can be given here.
Does require a lot of backstory....
We rent the end house of a terrace in a small village, have been renting through an agency for about 3 years and very happy although house needs some work and landlord is a bit slow to get things fixed. Apart from that we are left to our own devices and are hardly bothered. (We have put up a lot of frames on walls (normally a no no when renting) and have totally sorted the garden at our own expense and put in a cat flap, had an inspection earlier in the year and they were not fussed by any of it).
Our next door neighbour (“Margaret”) is the elderly mother of one of my wife's (“Jane”) best friends (“Anne”), which we only found out when we moved in but turned out to be a pleasant surprise and we started hanging out a lot more. Over covid my other half walked her dog a lot and checked in on her all the time, and we’ve always done jobs for her and checking in on her at Annes request. Several months ago Margaret had a fall and went into hospital, turns out she had some health issues and early onset dementia, so she is now going into a home, moving from temporary to permanent care home sometime soon from what I remember. At some point since then the issue of selling the house was raised and after some informal chars the premise was put forward that they could sell to us, cutting out estate agents etc and allowing us to buy our first house. They are aware we are not ready to buy straight away and do not have a full deposit ready to go, so we would live there for 6-12 months practically rent free in order to save a deposit. We have jumped at it as we are long term renters and this would be a great chance to own our first house.
So...going into bullet points to try and explain pros and cons...
Jane is 6 months pregnant expecting baby at end of December. We have said we want to move in by end of November so we are settled for when the baby is born.
House needs a lot of work, ie half the rooms painting, lots of fixtures changing, general maintenance as hasn’t been updated since later 90’s probably, but nothing structural as far as we know. We will be paying for all this ourselves. We have already started painting one room, and Anne and her brothers are planning a house clearance for about a fortnight's time.
Living practically rent free will allow us to save so much money especially as Jane will be on maternity probably for 9 months at least.
Margaret does not need to money from the house straight away as she has savings to pay for care home, but we have not asked how long they will last etc as we don’t think its our business.
What is worrying us....
What are our legal rights if we move in basically under the radar? We are assuming we will sign some form of contract with them at some point but we have not really sorted anything out yet. We are assuming we will have to tell council, water/gas/internet companies to get amenities switched on, but who do we need to legally tell and who do we not need to inform? If someone finds out can we get evicted down the line?
There are two older (late 40’s/early 50’s) brothers involved both of whom are not local (one in London, one in USA) who are supposed to be sorting evaluations etc as sister has sorted mum out in care home, so us being less involved. They have been pretty hands off so far and we’ve had little to no contact with them so far apart from through sister as mediator (they are not the most amicable family, and there is not much sentiment attached to the house in general, Anne in particular is not very emotionally close to Margaret for lots of reasons we won’t get into!) Is this a red flag? We will be seeing them all in a couple of weeks when they are here to do the house clearance so hopefully that will clear some stuff up.
Also to point out, these are not just mates we've met down the pub and trying to get a good deal...Anne and Jane go back years and years/frequent dog walking and care packages through covid/Jane basically rescued mum from dying alone in her own house and called ambulance/we both went to Anne's wedding a few months ago/we rehomed Margarets dog with my sister instead of putting her in a kennel/ we went to mums 80th bday in care home with family where we were the witnesses to them doing power of attorney/mum is aware that selling to us is something likely to happen although with dementia not sure how much she is aware. Basically we do have a fairly good relationship and they can see that we have been involved with her life and are not trying to take the piss.
We are concerned they may have an unrealistic valuation in mind, as brother living in London may have a skewed view of house prices, although we will wait for the valuation. We also don't think we can get a mortgage until Jane finishes maternity? She is speaking to an adviser this week I think to learn more about it.
The last conversation we had was along the lines of “It’ll be fine you can move in whenever you want and we’ll sort all the detail out down the line”, which on one hand is great but has started getting us nervous that we don’t have actually any details written down at all, only verbal agreements.
Another point is that my mum has said she will give us up to 30k to put towards deposit, which is massive help but how will that affect things?
So in conclusion…
What does everyone think? Should we go for it and not worry?? Should we back out now and keep renting?? We can literally say “sorry we’ve realised this doesn’t work for us” at any point and stay in our rented home which we have very much made our own. But this is such a great opportunity everyone we have mentioned it to says we should go for it!
Happy to answer any questions! Thanks in advance!