THE SCENARIO
Often clients come to Enness because of our reputation for solving complex cases. A client came to me recently following an online search and reading a previous case study which demonstrated our ability. This gentleman was a British ex-pat based in Spain who was looking to purchase a seaside buy-to-let property in Devon, the UK valued at £850,000.
With a burgeoning market for holiday lets, boosted by the huge increase in holiday home rental websites, my client’s idea was for this property to generate an income solely as a holiday rental. This creates issues for lenders as they would typically require that a tenant is already lined up for a property in the mortgage application stage. A tenancy agreement is usually essential since there is no guarantee of income from a holiday let.
As well as this my client was seeking a 65% loan to value (LTV) of around £550,000 which would be very difficult to achieve for properties valued at under £1million, especially for a client based overseas. Thankfully, at Enness we have an impressive network of contacts that meant I was able to help.
OUR SOLUTION
Clearly, I had a challenge ahead finding the right lender for my client, but some thoughtful research brought me to a British building society who was comfortable with the holiday let situation. The building society has a fairly niche market only serving England and Wales (and excluding the rest of the UK) and was therefore interested in this case.
It was agreed with the building society that my client would have an agency in place to take care of the upkeep of the property between guests’ stays. The employment of the agency ensures the lenders that there would always be the capability for repayment.
I was able to negotiate a discounted rate of 4.49% on an interest-only repayment basis with the client’s desired 65% LTV. This was greatly satisfying for the client as his desire for the property to be a holiday let meant better returns than a tenancy, and therefore ease of repayment. I get great enjoyment from working on these diverse and challenging cases, and immense satisfaction when they complete.
Information contained in our case studies is for market and illustrative purposes only. In some cases, these may be made up of multiple cases and are for illustrative purposes only.
Some case studies are made up of enquiries that have come into the business, not all business completes, and the posting of a case study does not represent a completed piece of business.
