One of your first decisions when purchasing a Bed and breakfast or Guest house and arranging a bed and breakfast mortgage is the size of property that you require and what you can afford. Sometimes it’s as simple as finding the cheapest B&B mortgage. But as a basic rule of thumb, you will need at least two more bedrooms than you plan to let out, in order to accommodate both your family and your guests, i.e. if you plan to have five letting rooms, you will need a seven-bedroom property. Obviously, the exact amount of personal space that you require will depend on your family circumstances. An experienced  B&B mortgage broker can help you to arrange bed and breakfast mortgages, guest house finance, and general bed and breakfast mortgage advice for your business.

Six- to twelve-bedroom properties are popular as B&B’s or Guest houses because this size of establishment can be run with minimal extra staffing. As with every other kind of property, price depends very much on location. For example, B&Bs in towns popular with tourists, such as Bath, Chester or Stratford on Avon, will be more expensive than Guest Houses in less coveted areas.

B&B/ Guest house Rules and Regulations
If you want to turn a private residence into a bed and breakfast or guest house, you will require permission from the local authority for the change of use. Issues regarding access to the commercial property and adequate parking will need to be addressed before permission is granted. Once initial permission has been obtained, you will need to ensure that your B&B or guest house complies with all the latest health and safety regulations, as well as applying for the B&B mortgage.

Fire Safety: Until recently, small B&Bs and guest houses did not require a Fire Certificate. However, since October 2006, all bed and breakfast owners have been obliged to carry out a Fire Safety Risk Assessment. As a result, it is anticipated that many more bed and breakfasts will have to install fire doors and fire escapes, so estimates of these costs will need to be included in B&B purchasers’ calculations. A Bed and breakfast mortgage broker for a guest house or bed and breakfast will be able to assist in all areas of costings.

Environmental Health: If your bed and breakfast business has more than four letting rooms, your local authority’s Environmental Health Department will want to inspect the kitchen facilities. If your establishment has a domestic kitchen only, inspectors might decide that it is unsuitable for the preparation of large numbers of breakfasts. Modifications to comply with food hygiene and fire regulations can be expensive; extra sinks, refrigerators, fire doors and extractor fans, for example. Again, all areas of bed and breakfast funding can be taken care of by gaining the right bed and breakfast mortgage advice.

Summary
Allow yourself sufficient personal accommodation space when choosing which B&B/ Guest house to purchase;
Select a bed and breakfast/guest house property that is not too large for you to manage using your available resources;
Calculate carefully the costs required for compliance with Health & Safety regulations.

Look at our Bed and breakfast mortgage calculator for a quick online guest house mortgage/bed and breakfast mortgage quote.