Any way around renting my property?

sarahtom

This might be a difficult question to answer without knowing the technicalities but....

Two years' ago I bought a property (first one), with the help of a grant from my local council ('Step up' grant for first time buyers) of 10,000. This was added as a 'second charge' and is kind of similar to shared ownership, I think. I havent really been provided with many details relating to this charge.

Unfortunately I now really want to live in a different location (renting or buying), for various reasons. This might be 'tough luck' for now but i'm hoping there could be a way around it. All I know about the conditions of my grant are that if I sell the property within five years then I have to pay back a proportion of the grant (60% after two years, 80% after three etc). It also states that I can't 'grant a lease, sub-lease or license over whole or part of the property'. Is there any way around this do you think? e.g. lodgers rather than tenants etc? Ideally i'd like to rent the whole place out rather than a room to afford a flat in my preferred location (Manchester) but is this not possible?

thank you.

G_M

You can only call your lodger a 'lodger' if you live there too! Which kind of defeats the idea of wha you are tring to do.

There is info here.

I'm afraid conditions like this are there for a reason - to stop unscrupulous people (I'm not suggesting you are one!) from taking advantage of tax-payers money to buy a property cheap and then sell or rent it out to make a profit.

agrinnall

You must be resident in order to have lodgers so that's not going to work if you intend to live elsewhere. I think you need to find a way of asking your council if the condition you quote means you can't let, and if it does whether they can waive it. Presumably you also have a mortgage so you will also need to speak to them about either Consent to Let or conversion to a Buy To Let mortgage, both of which are likely to cost you in either a fee, increased interest or both.

maginot

Can you afford to repay the grant? As mentioned by previous poster, the grant was to help first time buyers but not to allow investors to make £10,000. This is why there is strict rules on not being able to rent out the property.

If you can afford to, you are probably better off just selling the property and repaying the grant, then you can buy a property in Manchester. If not you'll be paying a mortgage and rent (as it would be difficult to get a second mortgage) and are unable to rent out your current property, not to mention house insurance would be difficult and maintenance costs without living there. This would likely be a lot more costly than losing the £10,000 grant.