Two live examples below — one paying £21,840 a year on a corporate lease from the month you complete, one staged across two years to 2027. Both worked through with the overseas stamp duty surcharges included, which is where most brochure figures fall apart.
One pays you from the month you complete. One pays you nothing until 2027. Working out which of those you are is the whole decision — and if you want both at once, you want neither.
6-bed, fully tenanted, let on a corporate lease. Income from completion.
A 1930s conversion on Steelhouse Lane. Staged payments, completion targeted for September 2027.
Yields quoted are gross and are not guaranteed. Availability changes — each HMO is offered to one buyer, and there is stock beyond what is shown here. Off-plan pricing and completion dates are the developer’s and can move. Property values and rents can fall as well as rise.
As a non-UK resident buying an additional property in England you pay the standard stamp duty bands plus 5% because it is an additional property, plus a further 2% because you are not UK-resident. That is 7% on the slice to £125,000 and 9% on the slice above it. Here is what that does to the two properties above.
| Stamp duty | Egremont HMO | Priors Gate 1-bed | Priors Gate 2-bed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7% on the first £125,000 | £8,750 | £8,750 | £8,750 |
| 9% on the next slice | £8,406 | £11,025 | £11,250 |
| 12% above £250,000 | — | — | £11,520 |
| Total stamp duty | £17,156 | £19,775 | £31,520 |
On Egremont, once stamp duty, legal fees, searches and a survey are in, the money you actually deploy is roughly £239,000 — not the purchase price. £21,840 against £239,000 is about 9.1%, not 10%. And that is before UK tax. None of that makes it a bad buy: 9.1% contracted, hands-off, with a corporate tenant is a good number. But 9.1% is the number, and anyone showing you 10% without the surcharges has left something out.
As a non-resident landlord, your letting agent or tenant must deduct basic-rate tax from your rent unless you have registered with HMRC under the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme to receive it gross. Register early — it is not instant, and people lose a chunk of their first year’s income to this purely through paperwork. The UK and Nigeria have a double taxation agreement; how it applies to you is a question for a qualified accountant.
Nigerian investors don’t buy UK property for excitement. They buy it because it does three things that are difficult to achieve at home.
Rent is collected in pounds and the asset is priced in pounds. For an investor whose income and savings sit in naira, that is a structural hedge — the value of the asset is not tied to the naira’s performance.
England and Wales run a state-guaranteed land register. Once you complete, your name appears on the title register — and you can order a copy from HM Land Registry yourself, for a few pounds, without asking anyone’s permission.
A UK property is often the first step in a longer plan — a base for children studying in the UK, or an asset that sits ready if the family relocates later. Owning property does not itself grant any visa or immigration right.
Overseas buyers can purchase in their own name or through a UK limited company. Which is better depends on your tax position — we’ll set out both and you take advice from an accountant before deciding.
Most people considering a UK purchase from Nigeria have the same first question, and it isn’t about yield. It’s “how do I know I won’t lose the money?” Here is the full chain, step by step, with the point that matters most stated plainly.
A UK conveyancing solicitor acts for you and only you. We can put forward two or three firms that regularly act for overseas buyers, but you choose, you instruct, and you can pick a firm we’ve never met. Any UK solicitor’s registration can be checked free on the Solicitors Regulation Authority register.
Purchase price, refurbishment estimate, comparable sales and rents, the assumptions behind the projected return, and what we think the risks are. You read it in your own time. Nothing is payable to see it.
A client account is a regulated account, held separately from the law firm’s own money under Solicitors Regulation Authority rules. Your solicitor releases it to the seller’s solicitor on completion — not before, and not to anyone else.
Purchase funds never pass through BlackRidge. If any sourcer ever asks you to send the purchase money to their own company account, stop.Title investigation, local authority searches, contract review, and the anti-money-laundering and source-of-funds checks every UK firm is legally required to complete. These checks protect you as much as they protect them — be ready to document where your money came from.
On completion the property becomes yours, and your solicitor registers the transfer at HM Land Registry. Once registered, you can order the title register directly from HM Land Registry and read your own name on it. You are not relying on us, or anyone else, to confirm you own it.
Our fee is for finding, underwriting and negotiating the deal. It is invoiced to you as a separate transaction and is never taken out of, or mixed with, the money buying the property.
Finance for non-UK residents exists, but the lender pool is far smaller than for UK buyers, deposits required are higher, and rates are typically above standard UK buy-to-let products. Most overseas purchases at entry level are completed in cash or with finance agreed in principle well before an offer is made. If finance is central to your plan, tell us early — it changes which deals are worth showing you.
Stamp duty is the big one and it is worked through above. These are the rest — smaller individually, and collectively the difference between a projection and a return.
| Cost | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Legal fees | Your solicitor’s fee plus searches, Land Registry fees and bank transfer charges. Overseas buyers sometimes pay a little more for the additional identity verification. |
| Survey | An independent survey on the actual building. We recommend one on every purchase and never discourage it. |
| Refurbishment | Where a deal involves works, we cost them in the pack and show the assumptions rather than a single optimistic number. |
| Our sourcing fee | Quoted to you in writing before you commit, invoiced separately from the purchase money. |
| Ongoing — management | On a standard let, a UK letting agent is effectively essential from overseas — budget a percentage of rent plus tenant-find fees. On the corporate-lease HMO stock there is nothing to manage, which is most of the reason overseas buyers take it. |
| Ongoing — UK tax | UK rental profit is taxable in the UK, and the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme registration above decides whether you receive the rent gross or net of basic-rate tax. |
| Ongoing — the boring ones | Buildings insurance, safety certificates, licensing where applicable, maintenance, and a realistic void allowance. Any projection that assumes 100% occupancy and zero maintenance is not a projection. |
UK property fraud aimed at overseas investors is real and it usually looks professional. Run this list on us as readily as on anyone else — it takes about ten minutes.
Yes, and most of our overseas clients do. Identity verification is completed electronically or through a notary, documents are signed and returned, and your solicitor handles the exchange and completion. We work to your time zone for calls — Lagos is one hour ahead of UK time in winter and level with it in summer.
Through your bank or a licensed channel, with a clear paper trail. Your solicitor is legally required to establish the source of your funds, so the cleaner the documentation the faster the purchase. Foreign exchange rules and limits change — speak to your bank about the current position before you commit to a completion date, because funding delays are the single most common reason an overseas purchase slips.
It depends on whether you intend to keep the profit in the structure, how many properties you plan to own, and your position in both countries. A company brings different tax treatment, extra running costs and additional lender requirements. We will lay out both routes with the figures; the decision should be made with a qualified accountant, not with us.
UK rental profit is taxable in the UK. Under the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme, your letting agent or tenant must deduct basic-rate tax from your rent unless you have registered with HMRC to receive it gross — so register early. Gains on sale can also be taxable in the UK. The UK and Nigeria have a double taxation agreement which may affect how the same income is treated at home; that is a question for an accountant qualified in both.
It depends entirely on strategy and location, and the surcharges above mean the entry cost is higher for an overseas buyer than the headline price suggests. Tell us your budget and we will tell you honestly whether we can find something worth buying at that level — including if the answer is no.
A UK letting agent, appointed by you. Managing a UK rental remotely without one is not realistic. We introduce agents we have worked with, you appoint whoever you prefer, and the contract is between you and them.
Then see it. We will arrange a viewing when you are next in the UK, or send video walkthroughs and the independent survey. Nobody should be rushed into a purchase they have not properly examined.
No. Property ownership on its own confers no immigration right or advantage in the UK. Anyone telling you otherwise is misinforming you.
Nothing payable to see the figures. If neither of these fits what you’re actually trying to do, we’d rather tell you that than send you something that doesn’t.