Right to buy council homes ?

[the_constructor]

Hi,

I wasn't sure which NewsGroup to put this in so I have placed it in both.

My next door neighbour has applied to purchase her council house. Everything was going great until yesterday when the mortgage adviser from the right to buy agents turned up and told her that she could not have a mortgage because the house was of duo clad construction.

Question is, is duo clad construction the name given to the fact that the house is constructed of breeze block inside then plastered and built of breeze block on the outside with a covering of concrete and a cavity between the two breeze block walls. ?

If this is the case, can anyone shed any rules or regs that say mortgages are not allowed for this type of property and also, what does it mean in terms of insuring said property.

I know mortgages are hard to come by but not impossible for houses made from orlite. I think that is how it is spelled.

[Tony Bryer]

It sounds like the house is built using one of the post-war prefabricated systems, not block/block cavity walls.

It's up to each lender to decide what they will lend on

Right - you probably mean Orlit: type this into Google for more information.

[Karen]

" Everything was going great until yesterday when the mortgage adviser from the right to buy agents turned up..........."

You do realise that, apart from mortgage advisory, pretty much everything those companies do is available for free by your local authority? I remember one particular compnay (I think called Diamond) who charges £3000+ for the councils free service!

[the_constructor]

Oh yes, I realise this and pointed it out to her at the very start, but you know what some people are like.... !

[the_constructor]

The walls are definitely breeze block on the inside and breeze block on the outside with cavity in the middle. I know because I sank a couple of 20 plastic conduit tubes into my wall for a plug socket. I don't like capping because if anything goes wrong, you usually have to chisel wall out again and using plastic conduit, you can just pull new cables through. By the way, it was a case of 10 mins to chisel wall and 9 hours to clean all the mess up. The dust got literally everywhere.

[Steve Robinson]

clinker block , bloody awful stuff

been in the industry 30 years and have never heard that term used before

i would get you neighbour to get a second opininon

[Phil L]

No, that's just called a normal cavity walled house, the internal and external walls can be made of bricks, blocks or a combination of both, all are standard consctucts and are permitted by building regulations, even today.

Someone's crossed wires somewhere, the term 'duo clad construction' is not recognised by google, meaning it's made up.

someone will lend her money on it.../most/ mortgage companies are loath to lend money on 'non standard' constructed houses, while other specialise in them, she'll have to do some googling herself...she can start here: