Mortgage rules for short term letting

nbuer

We have owned our house for 10yrs and refixed our mortgage two years ago at a very attractive level. Due to the possibility of working overseas at the time of arranging this mortgage we asked if we could rent the property out if need be, we were told by the Mortgage provider ( well known High St Bank bailed out by taxpayer) that this could be done for a £75 admin fee.

Now we have come to need this change and have been told in no uncertain terms we either need to change to a very expensive buy to let mortgage or pay down our existing mortage by at least 200k. ( we have lodged a complaint regarding the incorrect information at the time of re-mortgaging, thats going to go nowhere....)

Does anyone know if we were renting our home out as a holiday let for no more than 14 days at a time and for no longer than 20 weeks a year if this would still count in the same manner as full time rental?

Otherwise it looks like we will have to sell when we relocate.

Fire_Fox

Chances are the information was correct at the time, but lenders have tightened up their policies in the intervening period due to the recession.

poolboy

holiday letting sounds even worse risk for you (&therefore the lender) than short term letting where you have an AST to protect yourself.

Once the lettee is inside your house with no forceful entry they are pretty difficult to remove.

I had a similar situation ages ago, lender wanted to charge commercial rates on a mortgage. I negotiated it down but that pre crunch times.

All the best

nbuer

thanks poolboy and Fire Fox, I think we've resigned ourselves to it being a situation we can do nothing about, due to the downturn.