Is it legal to do a temporary 'house swap'?

lfturner1

Hi all!

I have attempted to google this to no avail, so hopefully this makes sense!

My husband and I have a mortgage on our home in Sussex. We completed in November 2017 with a 3 year fixed mortgage.

We are now looking to move to London for work.

My grandfather owns his home in London outright. He is looking to move to Sussex, so my OH and I want to propose a year long 'house swap', as we can't afford a house in London at the moment and would have to pay early repayment fees on our mortgage.

We can then see if we like living in London, and if my grandfather likes living in Sussex. If so then we can look for our own place in London and sell our house in Sussex.

We would continue to pay mortgage on Sussex house, my grandfather would cover bills. We would just pay bills etc on London house. But I'm guessing we would have to register everything in our names for council tax purposes etc.

So, is this legal? At the very least would our mortgage company have an issue with it?

Sorry for the long post, and hopefully this makes sense!

Comms69

It's legal sure. BUT the law doesn't cover every small specific position.


Your lender may have an issue with this and that's who you need to check with

Mahsroh

Nothing wrong with it in the eyes of law. The only stumbling block as Comms69 said is the mortgage lender. If you were moving to London and then intended to let your house during that period you would require a 'consent to lease' from your mortgage provider. Your circumstances are of course different to that as you are looking to have a family member move in. Only your mortgage provider will be able to answer that question though.

eddddy

It would probably be breaching the terms of your mortgage.

But realistically, if you don't say anything to your lender, and you keep paying the mortgage... I guess your lender wouldn't find out.

If your lender did find out, I guess you would just have to swap back.

Apart from that, I don't think there would be any legal issues.

AnotherJoe

Will you ever go back to your house at the weekend ? Your grandfather likewise at other times? Id have have thought so.
In which case whose to say you’ve actually moved ? I’m sure the people who stay up in the city Mon-Fri and back home weekends don’t say they’ve “moved. Or, suppose you do all the official stuff, all the bills council stuff, utlities etc , and after 3 months you or GF hate it and move back ?

So I’d just keep it simple, swap residences temporarily go home once in a while and don’t make it any more complicated than it needs to be, which is not at all.

Mahsroh

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Will you ever go back to your house at the weekend ? Your grandfather likewise at other times? Id have have thought so.
In which case whose to say you’ve actually moved ? I’m sure the people who stay up in the city Mon-Fri and back home weekends don’t say they’ve “moved. Or, suppose you do all the official stuff, all the bills council stuff, utlities etc , and after 3 months you or GF hate it and move back ?

So I’d just keep it simple, swap residences temporarily go home once in a while and don’t make it any more complicated than it needs to be, which is not at all.

Scrap what I said above. Don't contact your mortgage advisor.

Another Joe is smart. Do what Another Joe says.

Comms69

Mahsroh wrote: »

Scrap what I said above. Don't contact your mortgage advisor.

Another Joe is smart. Do what Another Joe says.

I'm inclined to agree, except that it could cause problems down the line. e.g. CGT etc.

lfturner1

These are all great points, it's very useful to know that in the eyes of the law we'd be ok.

I guess my worry was that everything would be registered (bills, council tax etc) to our own names in our own houses (GF and us) but we wouldn't be living in that property. Like for home insurance, would that be null and void, where are cars are registered etc.

But as AnotherJoe mentioned, if we go back some weekends (which we would) then we wouldn't technically be living there...

Really useful food for thought. Thanks a million.

G_M

Consider insurance too.

Your standard insurance will be on the assumption that the property is occupied by you as your main residence.

Just saying........

AnotherJoe

Standard insurance is fine as long as you aren’t away for more than 30 days or so in one go, or even more lenient, oniy if the house is unoccupied for 30 days.

AnotherJoe

Comms69 wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree, except that it could cause problems down the line. e.g. CGT etc.

Issues with CGT would oniy come about if you swapped “officially” not if you didn’t.
Another reason not to make it official,