Letting out my property whilst living abroad

looknohands

booksurr wrote: »

is that a guess or a quote?

seems lunatic low to me for a whole year

This is a quote from Towegate Insurance, was actually £446 I was being lazy... does this not seem right? Who have you used before?

This is for £10k contents as we will be taking most things with us and £100k rebuild value our surveyor quoted.

booksurr

getmore4less wrote: »

Someone on here(will need a search I forget who) just gets lodgers in to their house and keep a room for there own use when in the UK.

They spend a lot of time away.

Might mean less money and many say you can't do that.

Not an option if there are not multiple rooms.

that would be pure and simple tax fraud if declared under the Rent a Room scheme since a condition of that is it must be your main home, which is patently not the case if you live abroad for a year even if you do intend to return

booksurr

looknohands wrote: »

This is a quote from Towegate Insurance, was actually £446 I was being lazy... does this not seem right? Who have you used before?

This is for £10k contents as we will be taking most things with us and £100k rebuild value our surveyor quoted.

OK it is a quote, so provided they understood your plans then it will cost what it costs

with a 100K rebuild I assume you are not living in the SE of England?

gld73

I rented out a house when I moved abroad (intention was for 2yrs, ended up as 3 years) as I thought I was likely to move back to the same place.

- As it had been my home, and I was just moving away temporarily, I got Consent to Let from my mortgage company rather than changing to a Buy to Let mortgage. Had to pay an admin fee, but it was in the £hundreds rather than the £thousands. However, when I got CtL more recently on another house (been back in the UK for 4 years now, but moved within the UK), it cost nearly £3k for Consent to Let. Different lenders have different criteria!

- Will you be resident overseas for tax purposes? Having a source of income in the UK could complicate this - nothing insurmountable, but you'll have a bit of reading up to do on the HMRC website, there is specific guidance there. As a previous posting says, you won't be able to claim tax relief on mortgage interest payments now, so the majority of the rent will potentially be taxable. See the links at: https://www.gov.uk/tax-uk-income-live-abroad/rent


- Unless you have a reliable and willing relative or friend to manage the property for you, you'll probably need to use a letting agent to manage it. If you're abroad, it can be harder for the tenant to contact you with problems and for you to arrange to get them fixed if you're trying to do it yourself. You'll pay the agent a significant chunk of your rental income for this. I went with a supposedly reputable LA for this - paid about 12%/month I think, but they did very little for the money.

- If you change your mind about how long you'll be abroad, you may decide to stay longer and want to sell. I did this, so as I was somewhere with no real postal address or reliable internet access, gave a family member Power of Attorney to do all the sign-offs etc for me. It's a lot easier to arrange all that when you're still in the UK.

- I wasn't self employed, but was in a similar situation to that you describe when it came to buying another house when I returned. Mortgage companies required my last 3 months salary slips as proof of income - but when I moved back to the UK, my last 3 salary payments were from working abroad, not the job I was about to start. Not as bad as 2 years of records I admit, but a frustrating hurdle all the same.

- I have no plans to move abroad again - but if I did, personally speaking, I would sell up. My house was not looked after by the tenants, the letting agent did nothing for their money, and the time abroad can change your ideas about what you want to do/where you want to live. But that's just me. Other people will have had different experiences and may say renting it out is a great idea!

Good luck whatever you choose. Sometimes having a change and having different experiences is more important in life than shackling yourself to a lump of bricks and mortar in a street

looknohands

booksurr wrote: »

OK it is a quote, so provided they understood your plans then it will cost what it costs

with a 100K rebuild I assume you are not living in the SE of England?

No, I live in Norfolk,

The vacant insurance had terms of 3 months > 12 months, with contents.
I did think it was extremely cheap, so any recommendations would be good as they might not be the greatest, I'd sooner a reliable insurer than a cheap one. We have family here too so they would keep check on the property.

It looks as though we are best to leave it vacant. The income from letting will be tiny compared to the amount of management needed, I did read a few of those articles. I used to rent and understand the need for having a good landlord. We actually had a landlord who lived in SA once and it was difficult.

Though there's a feeling of guilt leaving it empty when it could be quite a nice home for someone for a year!

pascal22p

My experience:

The vacant insurance I had was around £522 per year including malicious damage and 1 visit per month (ocaso via ukinsurancenet). The main problem was endorsements with plenty of insurers having some that I could not fulfil (weekly visits, yearly roof inspection...). I phoned several brokers before finding the right policy.

I later got consent to let with HSBC. max 1 year renewable once. No fees, LTV about 82% the rent is more than 125% of the mortgage though. Every mortgage is different.

Management fee is 10% with the local agent I chose. My partner was a tenant with them for a few years which help in the decision to rent.

If all goes well, will be looking for a proper BTL in the future.

FBaby

If vacant, remember that you might still be liable for council tax.

CIS

FBaby wrote: »

If vacant, remember that you might still be liable for council tax.

He'd certainly be liable (as the owner) but whether there's a charge or not depends on the situation and the local authority.

Moving abroad for only a year is an issue - as a temporary abscence you'd still be regarded as liable for the council tax charge as you have intention to return. You would remain resident for council tax purposes. As the resident owner you would be responsible for the council tax charge.

If a tenant moves in some local authorities will simply go after them as the east option but in many cases this is a very arguable decision due to the owners intention to return.

Craig