Why buy to let?

g_rajagopalan

I am relocating overseas and called in my local estate agent to view my residence with the intention of putting it in the rental market.

I asked him about getting buy to let mortgage and estate agent said some thing pretty shocking.

He proposed not to bother converting to buy to let and continue with current resident marketing. He also suggested to set up mail re-direct so that all my mails to another address locally and get insurance with another provider(Not with the mortgage provider). He claimed lot of people are doing it!

Thought of post this see what every one things about it.

Thrugelmir

And if your tenants trash the property and the insurance company declines to pay up?

Is it a risk your happy to take.

Simon_gloster

A good broker, no doubt about it. Wise advice.

However you would be in breach of your residential terms and conditions, and should the lender find out by either :

1) you change correspondnce address and

2) you change insurance to a landlords insurance of which the provider will inform the lender.

they can call in the mortgage debt and there is f-all you can do about it apart from remortgage properly to a btl or sell with tenants (headache on its own) in there.

Your advisor is a cowboy/girl to even suggest this. Say to them you will report them to the police and that they would be arrested and sent to jail for 500 years with no parole. Ok, the last bit is OTT, but I wanted to bring humour to it on a friday night.

Summary, do it properly, you (i do by the way) never know what depts and systems lenders use to catch unauthorised tenancies and the no sh*t approach they take to it.

kingstreet

You don't have to change to a buy to let mortgage. You ask your current lender for consent to let.

This means the lender may charge you a higher rate, a fee or both, but you should get permission before you let your property.

brit1234

g_rajagopalan wrote: »

He proposed not to bother converting to buy to let and continue with current resident marketing. He also suggested to set up mail re-direct so that all my mails to another address locally and get insurance with another provider(Not with the mortgage provider). He claimed lot of people are doing it!

Can you name the estate agent firm and area not the person.

Its tempting to start a ongoing dodgy estate/letting agent thread to fight ill practice.

ACG

Loads of advisors did this in the past and i imagine a fair few still do it.
I would personally avoid him/her like the plague - your insurance would be invalid for starters which if your out of the country is the one thing your relying on...you may aswell not have any and save the £30 a month.

You may not need a buy to let though, getting a consent to let form your existing lender will be enough if they allow it.