Consent to Let with Halifax

MIchael

Hi everyone,

new member/first time poster so go easy on me if I’m putting this in the wrong place 😂

The basic details of my situation are that I bought my residential property with my ex girlfriend, back in 2016. Long story short is that we’re no longer together and the original joint mortgage that we had with Halifax (which started in April 2016) has now been replaced with a new mortgage in my sole name (still with Halifax but the new mortgage started in June 2019). I’m now planning to move abroad and rent my property out for the period that I’m away, with tenants already lined up and ready to move in.

When I filled in the Halifax ‘Consent to Let’ application, I noticed one of the conditions stipulated your mortgage must be at least 6 months old. I spoke to their telephone helpdesk and the woman advised me that it wouldn’t be an issue as my previous mortgage would also be taken in to consideration/classed as the overall length of mortgage. However I’ve now received a letter from Halifax advising that they’ve rejected my application on the basis the mortgage is only a month old, so I called them again and they proved to be no use whatsoever. I asked the woman why her colleague had advised me differently and all she could say was sorry if you’ve been misinformed. When I asked her if I could escalate the issue, all she could advise was that I go in to a branch and see if they can help (thanks Halifax)!

So basically, HELP!! Has anyone had a similar experience/know any loopholes/have any advice for me?

Thanks in advance!

csgohan4

Consent to let is at lender's discretion, if you wanted something confirmed, always get it in writing.


You could always complain, but I suspect you may get a good will gesture.


You probably knew you were going abroad before you remortgaged and therefore needed tenants? Did you not consider a BTL instead?


You cannot let while on a residential mortgage, it may invalidate your LL insurance and you may risk the loan being recalled if the lender finds out.


Is it worth the risk?

MIchael

Yea I know the potential risks and it’s obviously not a risk I’m keen to take (thanks for replying by the way 👍).

I reasons I didn’t think a B2L would be needed were:

- I spoke to my mortgage adviser at the time of taking out the new mortgage and she told me there shouldn’t be any issues if I did want to rent out the property once the new mortgage was in place
- Their terms state that you should have 25% equity, my equity is closer to 40%
- I spoke to their mortgage department directly and they advised me before submitting the application that my original mortgage would be taken in to account (so it wouldn’t be judged solely on the new mortgage start date)

Add in the fees associated with a B2L mortgage and it seemed like an easy and logical decision to just apply for consent for my residential mortgage. The one mistake you could say I made it perhaps not getting anything in writing, but I have a long standing relationship with my mortgage adviser in branch so I’m hoping she can help me out.

foxy-stoat

I had the same thing, re-mortgaged in my sole name and got consent to let a few months after. That was 6 or 7 years ago now so their procedures may of changed.

Escalate it, ask who your mortgage adviser's manager is, then talk to HIS manager!

kingstreet

If you were my client, I would be arguing the toss with regional management on your behalf.

Presumably your "advisor" was in-house?

muhandis

Make a written complaint to Halifax. Their frontline customer service can be very poor. A written complaint gets to someone who knows what they are doing and can give you authoritative information and will deal with it in a systematic and timely manner.


Reference the telephone call as well, with time and date as accurately as you can.


Good luck!

Yalpsmol

Was your conversation recorded? That may help in terms of complaining. Ive only been into halifax twice but they informed me the conversation would be recorded (for a mortgage application). Phonecalls are also likely to be recorded and retrievable.

diggingdude

whilst you were advised it probably wouldn't be a problem to get consent to let, did you admit that you were going to be doing it 1 month later?