Housing Benefit Help.... Home Owner

MissMoneypenny

You need to have your mortgage lenders permission to rent the property, without it you are leaving yourself open to a lot of other problems.

Many mortgage companies are now adding an immediate interest rate rise if they find a property has been let without their permission. Can you afford that? They also have the right to recall your mortgage.

If the tenant burns the house down, will your insurers pay out if you didn't have permission to let the property? We all know how insurers like to get out of paying out on claims.

On the landlord side of things, here are some things to think about:-

How are you going to pay your mortgage if you get voids? Or the tenant doesn't pay the rent? Or you need to go to court to remove the tenant? How are you going to pay for any big repairs that need doing? Don’t forget that you will need to inform the taxman too.

If they tenant pays the rent and you don't pay the mortgage and the tenant is evicted without proper notice or during a fixed term, then they can sue you. You may not have any money at the time to be sued, but they can wait until you do (subject to the timescale). They can sue the estate agent too. There is also the moral issue of the distress you caused a family as you didn't get permission to rent.

I would be very wary of using an estate agent who didn’t ask to see your proof of Consent to Let from your mortgage company. If the EA are getting something as big as that wrong, what else are they getting wrong? The landlord is the one who has to comply with housing law, even if they rent the property out through an estate agent. Anybody can set themselves up as an estate or letting agent.

Has the EA told you that the government is dropping the rents in April for all of the UK and as they pay for 40% of housing rents, this will have a significant effect on all rents?