Downsize to upsize? Mortgage questions

Fire_Fox

Are you intending to search for your own tenants, do your own credit checks and your own referencing? If not you need to pay a letting agent. Income tax is ~20% of your profit, that could be another £50 to £100 a month if you have a small mortgage (can only write off the interest).

apositivethinkingcat

Finding tenants etc I can do & have done (with lodgers) + can use friends to find new people. Income tax is the tough one - that's the bit that eats into the potential money.

So if I don't own the flat outright and the renters are paying for the mortgage - the interest bit they pay off is effectively an expense against the profit of the property? That's another factor I had no idea about. I thought the whole lot was taxable.

Very complex... I am trying to get a meeting with the bank to talk to them about all the options of porting the mortgage and overpaying on this one or if I could theoretically do any of this, but alas, help is not yet at hand.

Thanks to everyone for all their help and also help bringing my ever loft and optimistic thinking back to earth a little - I know far more what I am up against if I try to do any of this now