Buy to Let in Scotland for south of the border newbie?

We considered doing something similar when our children went to university and ultimately didn’t as we took their feelings into account. Firstly university is a special time and an opportunity to create lasting lifetime friends and obviously experiencing further education, not sure if saddling them with the responsibility of becoming a landlord ( especially in anti landlord Scotland) is fair and potentially time consuming.
Personally we encouraged our children to work/ study and pay their own way. There is no right or wrong but just be aware of all the pitfalls as it could end up being a miserable experience

I'm from England but I have 12 of 13 properties in Scotland. I don't have experience of HMOs though. Apart from the extra work of having to stay on top of two sets of legislation I'd say it's fine. I haven't experienced Scotland as being any more "anti-landlord" - if anything the recent legislation has taken away some of the reasons people had for being anti-landlord.

I’m not sure the right reason to buy such a property is just so your son can live in it with a couple of friends whilst at University. Doesn’t sound like a long term plan. What if he doesn’t like his course and packs it in after 12 months ? What happens in say 3 years time ? How far away is it from where you live ? I’d take a deep breath and decide if you really want another rental property. Then work out which type of rental would be best for you. Single let to a family perhaps. Which area gives the best rental returns etc. Most definitely better to buy close to home IMO. This should be a 100% business decision not 100% based on trying to help your son out for a few years.

We did exactly this for my daughter's final year at uni. We were the landlords, not our daughter, and overall it’s been a really good investment. We did some work on the property initially so that it was a comfortable home/study environment and that has paid dividends by making it easy to find and keep replacement student tenants ever since - it’s been several years now since daughter and friends moved out. We use a good letting agent when we need to re-let but otherwise manage it ourselves. Having had the benefit of tame family guinea pigs to practice on, we think we've got pretty good at knowing what works for the student market.

I’d suggest doing as much research as you can into the student market in your area so you can work out a realistic forecast of rental income versus costs. Be aware that some mortgage lenders will often not give a BTL mortgage where a relative will be in the property so you may need to consider a normal residential mortgage which you can convert later.

Good luck

We were thinking of the same for ours.
You won't get all three years - not enough time between results and hence finding out which uni to buy near, and getting the accommodation purchased and ready.
Take heed of the comments about allowing them to fully enjoy uni, but obviously there will also be many people who have done this successfully.
In the end we decided to purchase another close to home, with the mental view that this would pay the rent where he was. In the end we bought a couple of cheaper family houses closer to where we live so that I can maintain them, this covers his costs and gives plenty of flexibility.

I was planning to do the same thing. There's definitely no set in stone right or wrong ways to do it, but I'd maybe get some professional advice. I've been in touch with these guys https://www.stonefieldayr.com/ before for buying property so you could give them a call and see what they say

Funnily enough that was my future plan...but given the anti LL legislation and the sheer fact this is not going to get any better (when you add in all the EPC stuff that's in the pipeline) buying in a location further away from where I live now (so I can managed the Uni located property) is only going to add to MY burden. If anything we once the sproglets head off to Uni we are looking to downsize out own home anyway, so we might rent this then buy somewhere smaller where we want to live. Far more long term solution and I am sure then bank of M&D will help out while they are at Uni/starting off once left there.