Halifax - consent to let?

Kittikins

Hope someone can give me some advice....

I have a £150k mortgage on a property valued at £320k. Due to redundancy and finding a new, far less well-paid job, I now bring in only slightly more each month than the cost of the mortgage....

I am in the process of applying for a PGCE and if successful, will move away and live with family for a year. In that instance, I'd like to rent the house out and hopefully return with a lovely new teaching job that will pay the bills more easily!

Do the Halifax do consent to let - for say 18 months? If so, what is the procedure, i.e. how closely will they look at my finances? Are there significant costs involved?

I'm pretty resigned to needing to sell as soon as humanly possible and am getting the house ready to put on the market in the next week or so, but if there is any way I can avoid this, I'd like to, as my DD and I love our home (we only moved here a year ago as our 'forever home' and then I was put on consultation for redundancy a couple of months later ) and we'd like to stay.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Thrugelmir

Are you dependent upon the rental income to pay the mortgage.
Also what contingency plans do you have if the property is either empty or the tenant defaults?

bigadaj

Sensible thing would be to sell rather tha struggle, your equity will be a good deposit ona future home when things are more stable.

Kittikins

Totally dependent on the tenants to pay the mortgage Aah, never mind, I knew it would be a very long shot!

Oh, and £80k of the 'equity' I have in the house is actually a family loan, so I have less of my 'own' money.

kingstreet

Are you on a fixed rate or other product?

Halifax gives consent, initially until the end of the current deal and you pay nothing extra.

From then, if you want continued consent, you have to switch to one of the consent to let products, a three year fix at around 6% with £1,000 fee.

Kittikins

No, I'm out of my deal and have been on SVR (cheaper than the fixes) for a year now. How closely do they look at finances when asking for consent to let?

kingstreet

Your only option will be the three year consent with three year fix at 6%.

What do you mean, "how closely do they look at finances?"

Kittikins

My new take-home salary isn't much more than my existing mortgage, which is a reason to sell/rent.......however at 6% and with a £1k fee (and instead of just writing me a letter saying "you can let the house", the bank will look at my accounts!), it definitely looks like selling up is the only option.

Thrugelmir

Only the interest element of the mortgage repayment is deductible against the rental income. The capital element isn't.

Any profit is subject to income tax.

Allowance needs to be made for property maintenance and repairs etc. So sounds if your finances would be stretched should you let the property out.

kingstreet

Kittikins wrote: »

My new take-home salary isn't much more than my existing mortgage, which is a reason to sell/rent.......however at 6% and with a £1k fee (and instead of just writing me a letter saying "you can let the house", the bank will look at my accounts!), it definitely looks like selling up is the only option.

There are a couple of ex-Halifax bods on here. One of them will tell you the status requirements for a request for consent to let.

Kittikins

Thank you, I hope they find my thread