Buying the flat next door?

[lindalove]

The house we live in is seperated into two flats - a 2 bed upstairs and a one bed below with a garden. We own the top flat and the neighbours below their one bed.

However they now want to sell and we are interested in buying their flat, so we'd own both flats in the house.

I am just wondering what the pros and cons might be of this however and wonder if anyone has any advice.

For example:

• We have a tiny mortgage on our flat, could we combine the flat downstairs into our current mortgage or would we need two mortgages? (We could of course just pay off our one and get a new one downstairs)
• If we wanted to knock the two through, what would we have to do legally to get the properties merged (are their any restrictions on this? - the place is leasehold as we're in London)
• Do you think if we kept them as 2 flats the overall resale value would be more, as do people like flats with a possible 'granny flat' attached? Or would there be more value in knocking them though...?
• To be clear we'd not rent the flat out below but have it as a space we could finally have a dining room/table in and another spare room we could properly spread out into and use as an office.

[Property Cashpoint]

If you're planning to live there long term and want to give yourself more space then using the bottom flat as living space sounds like a nice idea. If you want to knock them through I think you would probably need to get permission, check with your council.