New area for me – Block of flats help?

New area for me – Block of flats help?

10:48 AM, 6th February 2020, About 4 years ago 14

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I am pretty experienced with property and tend to do all my own building work. I run semi and terrace BTL’s, but I am thinking about buying a large old house converted into 7 flats. This type of thing will be new for myself and so any pointers on what I should be thinking about will be very useful.

Background info on property: Converted with PP in early 1990’s into 7 flats (2 x 2 bed and 5 x 1 bed). Property is freehold on one title. It is 330sqm, Victorian and has the huge single glazed sash windows. Each flat has its own gas and electric meter. Not sure about water yet. It is fully tenanted and they are all on AST’s and long standing tenants.

Stuff I need to consider:

Electrical condition (new regs coming up in the summer)
EPC levels. Will I be able to cost effectively make the building a grade C by the end of the decade?
Boiler conditions and ages
Roof condition

What fire regulations will I need to meet? Need to have an assessment carried out.

Is the building on one stop cock for the water or are there several feeds ? Do I consider switching away from lead if still on lead (better water pressures and cleaner water).

Are there more responsibilities for a LL when running a block like this? eg, would I need to provide salt in the winter to prevent slipping?

I obviously need to look into the tenancy agreements and the tenants , but I think all will be ok with this one.

The basement can easily be turned into another flat, but may need planning to sink some light wells into place.

So if anyone can flag up something I need to look into before buying or stuff you have found useful when running flats this will be appreciated.

John


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Comments

david porter

13:59 PM, 8th February 2020, About 4 years ago

One important rule in business
KEEP
IT
SIMPLE

John

11:33 AM, 9th February 2020, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by AP at 08/02/2020 - 07:51
Agree tenant mix is important. I will be the one who does all this work. I have run a HMO in the past, but the hassle was not worth it.

Purchase will be done in cash, via remortgage of BTL's. So a better position. Thanks for the info.

John

11:36 AM, 9th February 2020, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by David Mensah at 08/02/2020 - 11:26The conversion was done in 1991 and it is registered on the planning portal. I will look into this with the council.

The pic is a good one, but is loaded by property118. The house is not as beautiful as this one, but it is sort of comparable.

John

19:52 PM, 1st March 2020, About 4 years ago

Update:

I have now seen the building twice, an offer is in and i will not move from this offer. It is below what the owner is wanting, but the building is over priced.

The building and flats are in good condition, but there will be upgrades needed. The house is actually 8 flats with the potential to do an easy adaptation in the basement for a 9th flat, plus a more advanced conversion for a 10th.

The water feed is blue plastic and i think is about 50mm in size. However all feeds for the flats tee off this feed and each feed is done in 15mm copper. There is a self made manifold in the cellar for this.

The electric is one feed coming in and supplies 3 meters:

1 for the communal areas = landlord meter

1 for the main ground floor flat which used to be the landladys home.

1 feeding the other 7 flats. Each flat has its own coin meter in place and so the landlady pays for the electric and collects this way. Not ideal going forward, but i think i can get 7 new meters installed costing £250 each. So i need to think about this type of expenditure.

There are 8 combi boilers in the building. 4 are newish, but 4 are old. So these will need to be replaced going forward. These are all on their own separate gas boxes.

Ideally i would update the kitchens, so would budget about £750 per unit.

I can see an easy £10k update spend on the building, but this wouldn't cover the electric or water changes.

I would like to know from a few of the previous posters what they think about the electric and water. Would you change it or keep it as it is ?

Thanks

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