Mixed-Use Purchase – Farmhouse with Ancillary Accommodation and Holiday Let

The Client

A family looking to purchase a substantial rural property as their long-term home. The property comprised a main farmhouse together with two additional self-contained units, all held under a single title.

The applicants had strong employment income and wanted to buy on a mainstream, regulated basis rather than through commercial finance.

The Objective

• Purchase the main farmhouse as the family’s sole and main residence.
• Retain one of the additional units as ancillary accommodation for family members.
• Continue running the second unit as an established holiday let, treated as supplementary rather than fundamental to affordability.
• Have the mortgage assessed primarily against the applicants’ own employment income.
• Keep the borrowing on a regulated residential footing wherever possible.

The Complication

Although the applicants intended to live in the main house, the property could not be treated as a single, standard dwelling.

Three distinct elements sat on one title:

1. a main residence
2. a separate ancillary unit
3. a trading holiday let

That combination makes this a regulated mixed-use case. It falls outside mainstream residential criteria, and it is not a conventional buy-to-let or holiday let case either, because the borrower’s own home forms part of the same title.

How We Assessed Options

We reviewed the case across our whole-of-market panel to establish whether it could be placed directly, and worked through the realistic routes in turn.

Step 1 – Standard regulated residential mortgage

We first considered whether the purchase could be placed as an ordinary regulated residential mortgage. This was not the right structure, because the property is not a single dwelling: the additional ancillary unit together with the trading holiday let on the same title place it outside standard residential lending criteria.

Step 2 – Buy-to-let or holiday let finance

We then considered specialist investment routes. This was not appropriate here, because the applicants intend to occupy the main house as their family home and wanted the case assessed on their employment income. An investment product does not suit a property whose primary purpose is the borrower’s own residence.

Step 3 – Direct placement within Drake’s lending panel

Finally, we tested whether the case could be placed with a lender on our current panel on a mixed-use basis.

Only one lender on our current panel would realistically consider a regulated main residence combined with ancillary accommodation and an established holiday let on a single title. With just a single direct option, we felt it important to spread the net further so the applicants had a genuine choice of lenders and terms, which confirmed that the strongest route lay beyond our panel, through our specialist master broker network.

Identifying the Right Route

This is exactly the kind of case Drake’s network is built for. A specialist master broker is a broker’s broker: a firm whose whole role is to give brokers like us access to lenders that sit beyond any single panel.

By drawing on that relationship, Drake can cast the net far wider than our own lender list, reaching those who will consider mixed-use and multi-unit titles and who understand the finer points of a property of this kind.

Maintaining trusted master broker relationships is a deliberate part of how Drake works, so that complex and non-standard cases still have a clear route to the right lender.

Working With Our Specialist Master Broker

Drake introduced the case to our trusted specialist master broker and made the initial enquiries on the applicants’ behalf, so it reached a broker with the right lender access without delay.

Drake charges nothing for the introduction, and the applicants would pay only the master broker’s own fee. Because Drake stays involved throughout, the client keeps a single, familiar point of contact while gaining the wider lender access the case calls for.