Taking the family travelling for a year. What about the house?

G_M

knightstyle wrote: »

We have done similar. If you want to let for a year store all your books, ornaments ect. Can you put them in the smallest bedroom and fit a lock? That is what we did.

If you do this, your AST will have to explicitly exclude that room.

But don't be surprised if a tenant decided to 'unlock' and go in anyway.

And since you probobly wouldn't have included all the items stored there on the inventory, if they vanished you'd be up the creek without.....

Put all you personal possession into professional storage. Leave basic furniture only (and check it is fire resistant).

Take treasued pictures off the walls - assume that anything you leave will be damaged so do notleave things you value.

jamie11

And also be aware that you may have problems getting your property back after your travels. If the tenant decides to stay after the fixed term then the only way you can re-possess is through the court after serving a S21, this will typically take up to six months.

Werdnal

knightstyle wrote: »

Do you have a neighbour or near relative who would like to earn some pin money cleaning and making beds? If so look at holiday lettings with someone like Hoseasons. That worked well for us we never had any damage and the house was empty when we needed it.

Speaking as someone who does holiday lettings, this could cause even more hassle and cost for OP.

Mortgage lender won't like it.

Insurance has to cover holidays, usually only specialist policies will cover it and you need to ensure you have public liability cover too. .

Property needs fire extinguishers, blanket etc and all electrical items must be PAT tested.

On top of this you still have the repairs and maintenance issues the same as you would residential letting, plus higher wear and tear as people in "holiday mode" are not always as careful as someone using it as their home.

You will probably need to arrange an agent to deal with bookings and payments as you will be too far away yourself, plus advertising, deposits and returning them etc.

You also have costs for laundry, towels etc, if you supply these, utilities, TV license, plus your council may insist you change to business rates as holiday letting is considered a "commercial" activity, where residential is not. Tax allowances are also vastly different.

duchy

Shaff wrote: »

Columbus insurance, up to £1.5k baggage (£50 health excess, £2m costs) for all of us (not including US/Canada), is only £72. They have great private hospitals in the India/Thailand by the way which would be covered.

I think you looked at their "Annual Policy" which is for multiple frips up to 31 days within a year NOT for travelling for one year on one trip.

Whilst I think you have a heck of a lot more research to do I'm rather saddened by the reactions of some people but perhaps it is down the fact that the majority on this board regard travel as purely for holidays and not for lifestyle - as the majority of their focus is on house and home. It might be interesting to see what kind of different response you get on the travel boards.

There are some fantastic blogs written by people who have done what you are planning - definitely google for them - but focus on the warts and all ones no the everything was easy ones....it won't be easy all the time but it can be a fantastic experience.

If it all looks non viable in the end financially-another option might be to take a one year contract in India -and use it as a jump off base for shorter trips and some travelling at the end of the contract-maybe a six month contract in India and then off to Thailand, Cambodia etc. Just throwing more ideas into the mix.

Vectis

Shaff wrote: »

I can get £2200 rent for my house, £1000 mortgage, plus I have another source of income amount to £600 a month = £60 a day travel money.

I don't want to be rude, but those figures are the sort of calculations you do on the back of a cigarette packet!

Where did you get the £2200 rent figure from? Is that what an agent has told you or is it your own figure?

What about the agent's commission? That will take about 15% off the rent each month.

Landlords insurance? Where's your figure for that?

You can also protect your rent with insurance for a few months, but that will cost you extra as well.

Either way, you need to allow for void periods when there are no rent payments coming in. Most ASTs will be for 6 months initially. It's quite possible a tenant will move out after 6 months and you'll have no rent coming in for at least a short while. Can you still afford to pay the mortgage?

Maintenance? How much have you set aside for it? Who will do the repairs?

You will need to get the mortgage lender's approval. This will possibly incur a fee or a higher interest rate.

Don't even consider leaving all the contents of your house! It would be a nightmare for the inventory (which is another cost) and things will go missing or get broken. Allow for storage costs for all your contents.

You haven't allowed for the costs for the drawing up of ASTs etc. Someone will have to do this. An agent could but will charge for it. As you have no experience you need to allow for this as well.

Apart from all the costs above which you don't seem to have considered, where will you live if, when you come back in 12 months time, the tenants are still in your house?

I'm not sure if the above seems harsh but you don't seem to have given it much thought at all.

HappyMJ

Shaff wrote: »

Have taken the bold decision to take a 1 year career break

Go for it...The older they'll get then you'll be debating with yourself whether it's worth taking them out of school for a year.

I would put as much into storage as possible. Little things will go missing from your property so don't leave anything except the largest pieces of furniture behind and only leave that if it does not have that much value.

£60 a day for a family of 4 is fine in the UK with all the rent paid already so it'll be more than enough in India....at least in my opinion I really don't think it's more expensive than the UK.

You must tell your mortgage company what you are doing...they are fine with it if you have enough equity and your payments are all up to date.

witchy1066

we took 2 years out to go travelling and it was the best thing we ever did,

we planned and saved for 2 years, sold stuff we didn't need, stored all our personal possessions at my brothers , and left the rest in the house ( in my eyes stuff is stuff and of no use unless you are using it )

we asked the mortgage company for permission to let which they granted without issue for the 2 years

we had 3 tenants in total over the 2 years, problems of a sort with them all but the agent sorted it all for us

we went back home after the 2 years but never moved back into the house, we went back on the road for another 12 months

we found a lovely place in South Wales and 16 years on have no regrets and are now ready to settle in our forever home, hopefully,

granted we didn't have young children or leave the UK unless you count Ireland and Guernsey but I think you would have the same problems as us in some respects
one was insurances , don't forget to freeze any pensions unless you can afford to keep paying into them , and also check that a gap in NI isn't going to effect anything for the future, our bank were a bit worried about us not having a permanent address which we soon sorted to every ones satisfaction by using my mothers address for any mail that may have needed attention,
you will soon get the idea of who needs to know your plans and who doesn't ,
we were lucky that we had a really good agent who looked after the house side of things
good planning is the key

all the very best to you and your family

dawyldthing

I went travelling around Thailand, Maylasia and Singapore for 6 weeks and it was enough for me and I was on my own. Could you both get 2 months off and travel one 6 weeks holiday or something instead?

Bobbyjim

Hi,

This is how we did the grown-up gap year recently (we are a couple in our 30s).

We rented the house out through Northwood. I've seen the recent thread about this company which was mixed, to put it politely, but they were basically fine for us. We chose them because of their guaranteed rent scheme - like you, we needed to rely on the rental income for spending money, so couldn't afford to take the risk of tenants not paying. They do take a larger commission (think they paid us £400 out of the £500 rent) but you get peace of mind that you WILL get your rent paid on time every month.

We made it clear that we were only looking for tenants who could sign a 12 month contract. We told the mortgage lender (Nationwide) what we were doing, they were fine with it and as I recall they charged us a one-off letting fee of £50 but there was no increase to the interest rate on the basis that it was a fixed-term arrangement. We had to give them a different address for correspondence (we used my parents').

We left the house as furnished but put all our own stuff away (e.g. bedding, kitchen stuff etc) into boxes and left them with any family members who had space. Whilst we were away we nominated a good friend who was willing to act as a point of contact for the tenants - Northwood were fully managing it but we wanted to have someone who could go round and sort out any small things that might not need paying for (e.g. our tenants once called him out to change a lightbulb - seriously!! - which I'm sure Northwood would have charged us for if the tenants had called them). Think the maintenance added up to about £400 for the year (new shower, bits and bobs etc)

I sold my car. It was only an old runaround and I bought a similar one as soon as we got back.

We used Direct Travel for insurance and I was very happy with them - we never had to claim but I checked the policy in detail and it was pretty sound.

£60 a day for four of you will be tight but just about possible, if you're strict. We spent more than that for 2 of us but we had quite a few treats.

Have an amazing time; you definitely won't regret it. Feel free to PM me if you want to ask me anything.

Bob

Shaff

Thank you everyone for their support, guidance, encouragement and well intentioned wake up calls especially around the household rental.

I do have a spreadsheet and it just got a lot more complex thanks to a few new fields I've added as a result of today's suggestions. Plus have a check list based on all said here.

Storage wise it will all go in my padlocked loft.

The budget needs more work, but if we have to come back earlier due to lack of funds luckily both set of grand parents( in Essex and Denmark) will have us and ironically my kids will get even more quality time with more people that love them. Though not sure I'll cope that well being 43 and living "at home" again!

Call me naive But will have to take my chances renting out by using a reputable letting agent and personally vetting everyone, seeing references looking at income (and avoiding Foxtons!) I have 4 quotes already that range from £2000 to £2200 so hope it can work if they leave early then I'll have to come back early! You only live once and sometimes the learning is by doing, so let's hope we have the time of my life rather than tenants from hell!

What is certain my main job as a local authority service manger will remain but the pension and NI will be put on hold until I return.

Ok anything else? I need to think off please let me know. Thanks to you all even the naysayers- all great reality checks.