Halifax - Consent to Let?

sh856531

Hi all

My partner and I have a small new build flat that we bought for 90K. Currently the property is worth probably more like < 80K because in hindsight - its the sort of property that plenty of people would be happy to rent for a while, but not necessarily buy :-(

The market seems very slow in our area and these sorts of properties just aren't selling in our area without *big* discounts. We spoke to a local estate agent and he told us that if we were in a position to rent it out it would be off the market within a week and we would likely make a small profit each month. He also said properties in the same block have been snapped up within a week when up for rent.

We are not overly desperate to be landlords but it is something we would explore rather than have to sell the property for 10K+ less than we paid. I'm familiar with the various legal requirements, insurance and so on.

Our problem is our mortgage with Halifax is obviously a buy-to-live-in type of arrangement and we probably have a LTV of around 80-85% depending on how you value the property. This is not the < 60% their website talks about for an official BTL mortgage.

Our hand is being forced however because we have recently had a baby and so really need to move to a bigger property soonish. We have enough deposit to buy a bigger property quite comfortably but the flat causes us a conundrum.

Can anyone tell us how likely Halifax are to allow us to rent out the flat? I've heard that they can be accommodating if we are asking out of necessity rather than as an investment. That would be fine but we would want to do it for more than the 12 months I've heard they might offer.

We would be perfectly happy to pay another 1.5 - 2% interest rate to account for the increased risk if it meant we were able to rent it out indefinitely and not need to swallow a 10 - 15K loss.

Any advice on how accommodating they are likely to be would be gratefully received

Many thanks

S