"Ed Sirett" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:51:01 +0100, Mike wrote:

Apparently on the ball conveyancing clerks are starting to ask for
certificates on the state of the gas/water/electric installations.

The effect of this legislation, IMHO, will be to fragment the
housing market into certified and uncertified segments. It's not clear to
me just what the relative size of the two markets would be. It is likely
to depend on a number of factors. However I suspect strongly that mortgage
lenders will take the line of least resistance and only lend against
'benchmark' houses. If that happens almost all houses will be 'to
standard' and it will take a great deal of marginally necessary work to
get them up to the the letter of the regs. If however mortgages were
available for any house then I suspect that only the top of the market
will get the 'A1' certificates.

Mortgages are available for any property, even derelicts, otherwise the
auction market would die whereas it is in fact possibly healthier than
normal sales at the current time. You just have to look a bit harder for
the money. But at the end of the day there's a huge amount of money out
there to be lent and currently only a limited number of people looking to
borrow.