Crazy Halifax 'consent to lease' rates - please help!

mindthegap9940

Can anyone help? . . .
My partner has a new (more secure) job which will be located in the south west of the country for one year (then probably back to London). We currently own a property in London and have our mortgage with the Halifax. We will need to rent the house out to cover our costs down south. I've just called them to request a Consent to Lease and they informed me that we will have the change from our current rate of 3.5% to either 5.89% tracker with a £599 fee or 5.69% fixed with a £1499 fee! We also have to ensure an agent manages the property (which we were going to do anyway but this does adds £70 p/month) and there are various conditions re who can /cannot live in the house. Just done a quick calculation and this could cost us an extra £600 per month (we have a big mortgage!) This could cripple us once we factor in other moving costs and costs associated with renting out (safety checks, storage etc). I am due to resign from my job next week, my husband starts his job in mid-Feb. Can't think of a way round this and am beginning to panic. We would need to pay a heft early repayment charge if we moved to buy to let elsewhere. I can only think my husband will have to go down south alone for the year and commute back for weekends but I'll be stuck working in London with a baby and toddler. Feel livid the Halifax are making life so difficult for those who aren't going to make any money from renting out property but just need to move in order to gain some job security. Does anyone have any suggestions? Many thanks

G_M

Take a look at this thread here...

mindthegap9940

BitterandTwisted of course I understand we have a residential mortgage and they can impose whatever fees/restrictions they like. I was asking for advice or suggestions.

We will be back in London in a year, so selling doesn't seem like a sensible option.

BitterAndTwisted

Well, the only advice or suggestion that I can make is that you decide to become professional landlords and take the hit on the fees and interest rate increase plus all of the risks attached to having a complete stranger living in your home. Or you sell up, bank whatever equity you may have in the property and buy again once you move back.

Or find another lender who will offer you a Biy-To-Let mortgage at alower rate than you have been quoted by Halifax.

There is no contesting what the Halifax have quoted the rates are when they have taken on board the increased risk they will be taking.

mindthegap9940

Right, thanks for the link. My first time posting and clearly there's a history with this sort of issue and it's ruffling a few feathers. I'm not particularly financially savvy so wondered if there might be a cheaper way to do this (another product maybe) and thought this forum might be a shortcut to getting there.

angrypirate

Look at it this way - at least they are giving you consent to let. Why didnt you consider this prior to your husband taking a 1 year contract in the SW? Similarly, if your husband goes down the wekkly commute route (and lots of people do it) then why doesnt he get a small bedsit in the SW so you dont have to work to and can look after the kids. If he is a contractor with his own registered company then he could offset this and his train fares against tax.

mindthegap9940

OK will investigate buy-to let option. Stamp duty costs prohibitive for selling and re-buying

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne

mindthegap9940 wrote: »

Does anyone have any suggestions? Many thanks

Sell your house. I paid a £2K repayment fee when I sold mine, serves me right for signing up to a fix the year before. Now I have moved and am getting on with my life.

mindthegap9940

We knew there would be costs associated with consent to lease - we made initial enquiries a few weeks ago without providing details and they told us the rate would be 5% and didn't mention any fees. We calculated we could just about manage this, but the extra is the killer.

Bluebell1000

We changed to CTL on my husband's flat 2 years ago with Halifax. At the time we were on a fixed rate residential mortgage and they didn't impose any extra charges because it was on a fix. It's now reverted to their standard SVR. It would be risky, but could you take out a new fixed rate residential and then ask for CTL? Might work out cheaper... but I'm not up to speed with ther latest criteria and am not a mortgage advisor, so if you try and it doesn't work, don't blame me

Werdnal

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I'm getting really concerned about the sheer numbers of similar threads that pop up on here every day. All of these folks feeling forced into becoming accidental landlords is making me very uneasy.

Me too, and I think judging by the higher fees and penalties the mortgage lenders are imposing they seem to be getting jittery about it too.

Seems only a short time ago, these accidental LLs were one here moaning about 1% increase in payments and £150 set up fees, but lenders are either getting greedy or scared!