To buy repossessed houses uk investors go to the auctions and the asset managers the lenders use, because a lender in possession has a duty to get the best price it reasonably can and a strong wish to get it quickly. To buy derelict property uk investors go to the same auctions, to the councils that keep empty-property lists and charge a premium on a house left empty, and to the owners of the house on the corner that everybody in the street can name. To buy abandoned property uk investors first have to find the owner, through the Land Registry, because an abandoned house is nearly always an owned one. This page sets out where each is sold, what each raises for the survey and the title, what the appraisal carries, and what the file keeps.
Where each kind of stock is sold
Repossessed houses go to auction or to an agent instructed by the lender's asset manager, with a short timetable and a legal pack the buyer reads before bidding. Derelict property comes through auctions, through councils' empty-property officers and through the owner, who may be an estate, a company that stopped trading or a person who moved away. Abandoned property is owned property whose owner has to be found: the title at the Land Registry names them or names nobody, and an unregistered title is a different and slower problem. None of the three is a bargain by definition; each is a house with a reason, and the reason is on the survey or the title.
The survey, the title and the appraisal
A repossessed house has usually been empty a while and sometimes stripped; a derelict one has the works of a full renovation and often a roof; an abandoned one has a title question before it has a price. The appraisal carries the works from a builder's quote with a contingency, the months empty at the finance cost and the council tax premium, the legal cost of a title that needs sorting, and the finished rent worked from the comps for finished houses in the street, which the rent comparables sheet on this site does per square foot. A property bought for the discount and appraised on today's rent has no discount.
The file, because these deals take longer than the others
An auction lot appraised in a week, a derelict house whose owner takes a year to sell, an abandoned property whose title takes longer: each is a deal that lives in the file for months, with the comps read at one date and the offer made at another. Keeping the source, the legal pack or the title search, the works quote, the comps and the appraisal against the property, with dates, is what lets the investor pick the deal up again when the auction is re-listed or the owner writes back. Yieldzo Pro keeps that file; the possession statistics and the council tax rules cited below are where the stock and its costs are published.
Questions people ask about buy repossessed houses uk
Where are repossessed houses listed in the UK?
At the property auctions and with the agents the lenders' asset managers instruct, and in the legal packs published before each auction. The possession statistics say how much stock there is by area; they do not list the houses.
Can I buy an abandoned house that nobody owns?
Nearly every abandoned house has an owner on the title, and one that does not has an unregistered title that a solicitor has to establish before anyone can buy it. The Land Registry search is the first step and the appraisal carries the legal cost of the second.
Is a derelict property a good buy-to-let investment?
When the finished rent from the comps covers the works, the months empty and the funding with a margin left, and the survey has no surprise the quote did not price. The renovation guide on this site sets out that appraisal; the derelict house is its extreme case.
Sources
- Ministry of Justice, Mortgage and landlord possession statistics: the quarterly count of possession claims and orders by area
- GOV.UK, Council Tax on second homes and empty properties: the premiums councils charge on a property left empty
- GOV.UK, Search for property information from HM Land Registry: the title, the owner and the price paid for a property