Practical tips for buying a house in the UK
Live-in or rental, the small checks that save big money later
The previous two articles covered the principles of buying a house and the mechanics of choosing a mortgage. This one is different. This one is about the small, practical things most first-time buyers never think to check, and which can make the difference between a decent purchase and an expensive mistake.
Some of these apply whether we’re buying to live in or buying to rent out. Some are specific to one or the other. All of them come from the same underlying principle: we should treat a property purchase the way we’d treat any other large financial commitment, which means doing proper due diligence rather than falling in love with the kitchen and signing whatever is put in front of us.
Things to check on any purchase
Walk the area at different times
A viewing at 2pm on a Tuesday tells us almost nothing useful. Walk the area on a Friday evening, a Sunday morning, and late on a Saturday night. Listen for noise from nearby pubs, takeaways, train lines, or main roads. Look at the state of the street. Is there anti-social behaviour? Are the neighbours’ houses well kept? Is there flytipping?
The property might be lovely. The area it sits in is what we actually live in day-to-day (or what a future tenant or buyer will). A cheap property in a deteriorating area tends to stay cheap. A reasonably priced property in an improving area is where you may find real value.
Check the drainage and water pressure
Run the taps. All of them, for a few minutes. Flush the toilets. Check the water pressure, listen for weird noises in the pipes, and see whether the hot water stays hot. Low water pressure on an upper floor is a common problem in older conversions and can be expensive to fix.
If there’s been a recent conversion from a house to flats, drainage is often the weak point. Ask whether there have been any drainage issues and request the service history if possible.
Look at the roof from the street
Most buyers look up at the ceiling inside the property and never at the roof outside. Stand back from the property and look at the roof. Missing or slipped tiles, sagging sections, blocked gutters, or damp staining down the walls from failed flashing are all signs of expensive work coming. A new roof can easily cost £10,000 to £20,000 on an average house.
This is particularly important for end-of-terrace and detached properties where the roof is entirely our responsibility.
Check for damp properly
Every buyer has heard “look for damp,” but most don’t know what they’re actually looking for. Signs include: musty smells (especially in cupboards under stairs or in corners of rooms), bubbling or peeling paint, stained skirting boards, salts on brickwork, and mould in bathrooms or around windows.
Damp has three main causes: penetrating damp (water getting in from outside), rising damp (moisture coming up from the ground), and condensation (caused by poor ventilation and inadequate heating). Condensation is usually fixable with better habits and extractor fans. The other two can run into thousands to address properly.
If the seller has clearly redecorated recently, ask why. Fresh paint can hide a multitude of problems. If you don’t see minor marks, scuffs or scratches on the walls, be suspicious.
Get a proper survey, not just the mortgage valuation
The lender’s valuation is for their benefit, not ours. It confirms the property is worth roughly what we’re paying. It does not check the condition of the property in any meaningful way.
A full building survey (sometimes called a Level 3 survey, around £600 to £1,500 depending on property size and location) is worth it for older properties or anything with visible issues. A homebuyer’s report (Level 2, around £400 to £900) is the middle option. Skipping the survey entirely to save a few hundred pounds on the biggest purchase of our life is a false economy we’ll regret if problems emerge after completion.
Things specific to flats and leasehold properties
This is where the most expensive mistakes tend to happen, because the costs are often hidden in documents most buyers don’t read properly.
Ask for the last three years of service charge accounts
The seller’s solicitor should provide these as part of the leasehold information pack. Read them carefully. Look at what’s actually been spent, what’s been budgeted, and whether the service charge has been increasing significantly year on year. A service charge that jumped from £1,500 to £3,200 over three years is a red flag.
Compare the accounts to the estimate you’re given for the year ahead. A surprisingly low estimate for a building with rising costs suggests the managing agent is deferring expenses, which just means a bigger bill later.
Check the sinking fund (reserve fund)
The sinking fund is money collected from leaseholders and held for major future works (roof, lift, external decoration, cladding). A well-managed block has a healthy reserve fund. A badly-managed block has little or nothing, which means any major work gets charged to leaseholders as a one-off “Section 20” major works bill that can easily run to £10,000 to £50,000 per flat.
Before buying a flat, ask two specific questions: how much is currently in the sinking fund, and are any major works planned or anticipated in the next five years? If the answer to the first is “nothing much” and the second is “yes,” walk away or factor in the cost.
Check the lift maintenance record (if there is one)
This is one of those details that almost no buyer thinks to check, and it matters enormously.
Lifts break down and when they do, the cost of repairs is split across leaseholders through the service charge. A lift that breaks down often is either poorly maintained, poorly installed, or at the end of its useful life. Any of those scenarios means significant costs coming.
Ask the managing agent for the lift service history. How often has it been out of service in the last 12 to 24 months? When was the last major service or repair? When was the lift installed? Lifts typically have a useful life of 20 to 25 years, so a 20-year-old lift in a building where the sinking fund is low is an expensive problem waiting to happen.
For new builds specifically, check how often the lift has broken down since the building was completed. A new lift in a new building should be essentially reliable. Frequent breakdowns on a lift that’s only three years old indicate either poor installation, poor quality equipment, or both. Either way, it suggests ongoing high maintenance costs over the lifetime of ownership.
Check the length of the lease
Leases below 80 years become progressively more expensive to extend, and some mortgage lenders won’t lend against short leases. Leases below 70 years are generally a serious problem. If the lease is getting short, the cost of extending it may run into tens of thousands of pounds.
This should be flagged by the conveyancer, but we should check ourselves too. The number on the original lease minus the number of years that have passed gives the remaining term. Easy to work out, easy to forget to check.
Generally, you should not entertain a property with a lease shorter than 100 years. If it is less than 100, it will be your problem to manage, so make sure you factor that into your decision making, as lease extensions can be onerous and very expensive.
Check who the managing agent is
Some managing agents are well-regarded and run buildings efficiently. Others are notorious for inflated charges, opaque accounting, and poor communication. A quick search of the agent’s name plus “leaseholder complaints” or “reviews” gives a sense of what we’re signing up for.
If the building is managed by a “Right to Manage” company run by the leaseholders themselves, that’s often a good sign. It means leaseholders have taken control of their building, which usually produces better outcomes than a distant agent paid by the freeholder.
Check for cladding issues
Any flat above four storeys built in the last 30 years should be checked for cladding issues. Some buildings are still waiting for remediation work, some have had it done, and some have ongoing legal disputes. A building with unresolved cladding issues can be almost impossible to sell or remortgage.
The seller should provide an EWS1 form (External Wall System review) for taller buildings. No EWS1 form, or one that flags problems, is a serious warning sign.
Things specific to new builds
New builds get sold on the promise of low maintenance, modern standards, and warranty cover. Some of this holds up, but much of it doesn’t.
The “new build premium”
New builds typically sell at a premium of 10% to 20% over comparable older properties. Much of this premium disappears the day we get the keys, because we’re now selling a “used” property against “new” competition from the developer.
If a new build down the road is still selling at the developer’s asking price, we can’t realistically ask more than them for ours. This matters enormously if we need to move in the first few years. Be prepared to lose money in the short term if that happens.
Check the developer’s track record
Google the developer’s name plus “problems,” “defects,” or “snagging.” Every developer gets complaints, but some get substantially more than others. If the same issues come up repeatedly (cold bridging, poor sound insulation, failed waterproofing, unresponsive aftercare teams), that’s what we’re buying into.
Snagging lists are essential
New builds always have defects. The question is whether the developer fixes them. Keep a detailed snagging list from day one: every crack, every sticking door, every issue with fittings. Report everything in writing within the warranty period (usually two years for minor defects, ten years for structural issues under the NHBC warranty).
Developers have been known to drag their feet on minor issues until the warranty expires. Photograph everything, document everything, and escalate promptly.
Estate management charges on “freehold” new builds
Many new build estates, even freehold ones, come with ongoing estate management charges for upkeep of shared spaces (roads, landscaping, play areas). These can be several hundred pounds per year and are often poorly disclosed at the point of sale.
Ask specifically: are there any ongoing charges beyond council tax and utility bills? Get the answer in writing.
Specific things to check when buying to rent out
The maths on buy-to-let has changed significantly in recent years (tax changes, stricter lending criteria, higher stamp duty surcharges, and regulatory changes). This article isn’t going to make the case for or against property as a rental investment. But if we’re doing it, here are some practical checks that matter beyond the standard due diligence.
Use census data and area demographics
The ONS Census 2021 data is freely available and provides area-level information on household incomes, employment, housing tenure, and education levels. Combined with other local data, this helps us build a picture of who actually lives in the area.
What we’re looking for:
Median household income in the area. If the median income is £25,000 and we’re pricing a two-bedroom flat at £1,400 per month, we’re asking tenants to spend more than 65% of gross income on rent. That is not sustainable, which means either the rent is wrong or the area is wrong.
Proportion of renters vs owner-occupiers. A high proportion of renters suggests demand but can also indicate transient populations. A mix is usually healthiest.
Employment profile. Areas with a high concentration of stable employment (public sector, healthcare, education, finance) produce more reliable tenants than areas heavily dependent on seasonal or insecure work.
Look at cars parked on the street
This sounds daft, but it’s revealing. Walk the street during evening hours when people are home from work. What do the cars look like?
Clean, well-maintained cars of a mid-range age suggest residents with steady incomes and some pride in their possessions. A street full of old, clearly neglected vehicles, or multiple cars with visible damage and informal repairs, suggests a different profile of residents and, by extension, a different profile of potential tenants.
None of this is a judgement on the people, but it is information about the likely rent affordability, tenant turnover, and risk of arrears in that specific area.
Check the neighbourhood at school pickup time
If there’s a primary school nearby, walk past at pickup time (around 3pm on a weekday). How many people are there? What’s the mix? Are the parents engaged? Do they seem to know each other? This tells us something about community stability and, again, the likely tenant profile we’d be renting to.
Check what’s closing and what’s opening
Walk the high street. Are shops boarded up? Are there new businesses opening, or are chain stores closing? An area where cafes, independent shops, and gyms are opening is an area on the way up. An area where shops are shuttering, charity shops are multiplying, and the bookmakers and pawnbrokers are expanding is telling us something about the direction of travel.
This matters for rental investments because the neighbourhood trajectory affects rent growth, property price appreciation, and tenant demand over a 10 to 20 year hold period.
Talk to local letting agents honestly
Letting agents know the local rental market better than anyone. Call two or three of them, explain what you’re looking at, and ask directly:
What’s the realistic rent for this property?
How quickly does a property like this let?
What’s the typical void period between tenancies?
What’s the profile of tenants in this area?
Are there any known issues with the building, the street, or the area?
Don’t ask the estate agent selling the property. They’re incentivised to say whatever closes the deal. Ask letting agents who don’t have a stake in the sale.
Factor in realistic costs
Gross rental yield is the easy number. Net yield is the one that matters, and it’s much lower than most new landlords expect.
Costs to factor in:
Mortgage interest (if applicable)
Landlord insurance
Letting agent fees (typically 10% to 15% for full management)
Annual gas safety certificate, electrical safety checks, EPC
Repairs and maintenance (budget 1% to 2% of property value per year)
Void periods (budget for 1 month per year as a working assumption)
Income tax on rental profits. NHS staff around bands 5-6 will likely be pushed up to the 40% tax band through rental income (see here).
Stamp duty surcharge on purchase (5% on top of standard rates since 2024)
Accountant fees (unless submitting tax returns personally which = more work)
Gross yield minus all of that is what we actually make. On a 6% gross yield, net may well be 0% or negative. Compare that to an ISA holding a global equity fund and decide honestly whether the hassle is worth it.
Check HMO rules if considering multi-tenant lets
Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) have specific licensing and regulatory requirements. Local councils vary in how strict they are. Some areas require licensing even for small HMOs; some have Article 4 directions limiting where HMOs can be located. Before buying with the intention of renting by the room, check the local council’s HMO rules in detail.
Margin of safety
A short reminder on negotiating for a margin of safety no matter what. Control your emotions as this is one of the most consequential financial decisions most people will make in their lives.
I have failed this test twice and it has cost me more than my current personal life savings. My personal wealth would be £150k greater if I had insisted on this over the course of the past 10 years. Yes. £150k in cold hard cash, if I knew then what I know today. But that is life & hindsight is lovely.
A short list of general questions to always ask
Before committing to any purchase, we should have answers to these:
Why is the seller selling? (Motivated sellers negotiate. Non-motivated sellers don’t.)
How long has the property been on the market? (A property that’s been for sale for six months is usually overpriced, has a problem, or both.)
What price has been offered and rejected? (Agents will often tell us this, though they aren’t supposed to. It gives a real sense of the floor.)
Has the property been under offer before, and if so, why did the previous sale fall through? (If surveys killed previous sales, there’s probably a reason.)
Are there any disputes with neighbours? (This has to be declared, but ask directly.)
When were the boiler, wiring, windows, and roof last replaced or serviced?
What are the typical monthly running costs (utilities, council tax, service charge if applicable)?
Are there any upcoming major works planned for the building or the street?
On-call summary
Walk the area at different times of day and week before committing; a lovely property in a deteriorating area rarely ends well
Get a proper building survey, not just the lender’s valuation; it’s the cheapest protection we’ll buy
For leasehold flats, read three years of service charge accounts, check the sinking fund, and ask about the lift’s breakdown history and age
New builds come with a premium that disappears on day one; check developer track record and maintain a detailed snagging list
For rental investments, use census data to assess area income levels and check rents against realistic local affordability
Look at cars parked on the street, shops opening and closing, and the neighbourhood at school pickup as practical signals of area stability and direction
Talk to letting agents who aren’t selling the property to get an honest view of rental demand and tenant profile
Gross rental yield is not what we make; budget for voids, maintenance, agent fees, insurance, certifications, and tax
Ask direct questions about why the seller is selling, how long it’s been on the market, and what offers have been rejected
Catch up on what you may have missed:
This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Property purchases and rental investments involve significant financial commitments and individual circumstances vary. For advice tailored to your situation, please consult a qualified solicitor, surveyor, mortgage broker, or financial adviser.
Great article man🙌
Keep grinding