splitting a large house into two seperate dwellings (pair of semi's)

Hi there,
I am after some advice please.
My husband and I are first time buyers.
My parents own a very large detached rural farmhouse the have been struggling to sell for 6 years and cannot afford to keep the property much longer. We would like to try and help by purchasing half of the property. It was 2 properties previously with 2 front doors and 2 staircases etc. It seems fairly straightforward. Literally blocking up/sound proofing 2 doors and loft etc.
I need some sort of advice on the route i would need to take before I culd mortgage the property. Obviously planning permission is a first port of call, but what type of permission would I require? Utilities I presume would need to be split before a mortgage could be given. Also deeds changed and building regs etc need to be contacted. We don't have any real money and would be planning on working on the property as we earn. Perhaps putting a makeshift kitchen into the property to make it mortgage able to begin with? It has no bathroom either, only an en suite to the master which would fall into this half of the property. Would this be enough for a mortgage company? I gets more confusing too. The property has been valued at £165.000 (each half) and we would be purchasing the property for £125,000 can this be a vendors gift. Sorry we have so many questions but we really are novices and it's all quite scary but I don't like to see my parents about to loose everything the have ever worked for and really would like to give them their lives back. Scared about the cost of utilities mainly although my husband is plumbing and heating engineer so he is quite hands n. Willing to do as much work ourselves as possible.
Thanks so much in advance
laura

I am not sure as to the permissions (talk to the planning office at the council - they tend to be pretty helpful and friendly these days), but if you buy a property from your parents for well below market value you may be edging into fraud territory, I would imagine....a good conveyancing solicitor would advise.

Keep us posted, and more advice will be along in a while.

Thanks for your reply. They do have some asset left in the house so nothing fraudulent involved. I wold only be purchasing half from them reducing the mortgage on their side. Thanks

I think your plans would be acceptable , with regards to the kitchen and bathroom as far as the mortgage goes, but they would also want to see all of the other works done, which would allow separate title.
Can your parents hold out that long because as you suggest you would need to physically separate the property according to building regs, separate the utility supplies and make it habitable as far as the lenders were concerned.
I don't see that buying for £125k would be fraud, but the lender would want concrete assurances that your parents no longer had any interest in the property and that it was a genuine sale to you and that you weren't in effect just taking out a mortgage to lend money to your parents.

From the purchase point of view

You can sell a house for however much you like.. geez, you can even give it away for free if you wanted to. To tricky bit comes with stamp duty.

Most of the time stamp duty is a calculation of the sold price, because most properties are sold at that their true value. However, if it's seen that you are attempting to defraud the system by buying a house under value by a significant amount then they can come down quite hard on you. Speak to a conveyancing solicitor about it, however given the house has not sold in a number of years, the true value maybe less than what's currently being asked for anyway.

For SDLT they have special rules for transactions between "connected persons" which I think includes parents/children. If the transaction is not at arms length between unconnected persons, then they'll use the market value and ignore the price actually paid. So if the half-property is valued at £165k then that's what you'll pay SDLT on, not the £125k you might be paying.
As far as the mortgage is concerned, the lender is really only interested in two things :
1) Can you meet the repayments ?
2) If you can't manage the payments, is there a property they can sell to recover their money.
For the latter, that means you have full title and the property is something that can be sold in it's own right to replay what's borrowed against it. So as you have already figured out, it needs to be a standalone property with it's own services and facilities - well I suppose not completely true, but without them it's value is substantially lower.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/camanual/ca11630.htm
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sdlt-transferring-ownership-of-land-or-property