Help with rent before purchasing please.

[newbie]

A bungalow near us has been vacated as the owner went bankrupt. He believed the mortgage company would repossess him. We asked him if we could buy the property and he agreed but we could not get a mortgage as we already have a mortgage. We are now thinking about asking if we could rent the property (his mortgage is £1600 a month). We would then move in, tidy up and finish our current home and sell it. We would then transport our current Mortgage Express mortgage from our current home to our new home. The bungalow has been internally stripped so we would have to invest as well as pay rent.
We wondered if the bungalows Mortgage Company (B&B) would allow this?
What guarantee would we have that the owner would not just pocket the rent?
What guarantee would we have that B&B would not repossess in the mean-time?
Is this a feasible option?
Do you have any further info that would help us?
Many thanks for your time.

[brian]

This is the problem - you're looking to rent a property you have no ownership of, and cannot guarantee ownership of.

About the best you can do is offer a plan to the existent tenant to produce to his mortgage company to assure some financial stability.

But to be honest, it sounds like it would be an awfully risky plan, as without any solid guarantees on ownership, you could find yourself simply paying both a mortgage on your current home until it sells while paying rent for a fixed term on top of this - and then find yourself having to move out and buy another property anyway.