Short Term Move - redirect mail or change address

seanym007

Hi,

After some advice.

Some friends of ours have very kindly offered my wife and I some spare rooms in thier house, rent free. This would allow us to finally save for a mortgage deposit and get us on the ladder.

This would be for a maximum of 1 year, so either way we'd either be moving back into some other rented accomodation, or we'd have completed on a house.

Despite this overwheleming genourosity, 2 things concern me..
1. During the 1 year term we'll effectively have no "bills" apart from mobile and a car payment - will this affect any mortgage application?
2. Changing address on everything is a pain esspecially as its short term, so I was considering just leaving our address registered as is (banks, car payments, electoral roll etc), and just re-direct our post for a year - BUT does this constitute as fraud?

Probably just worrying about nothing, but would rather ask a stupid question and be sure.

Apologies if this is the wrong post, did browse around but couldn't see anything similar.

Thanks in advance!

Sean M

ec9wrr

Changing address online with the types of companies listed is very easy. Most allow you to change in app. I’d say set up a diversion with Royal Mail to catch any you miss but try to change as many as you can. You’ll be saving a lot of money on rent as you say, so a small payment to Royal Mail and an hour or two changing addresses is nothing too serious. I’ve changed 8 companies on my mobile in the last 4 days, just doing the updates whilst I brush my teeth!!

The only people I’ve found to be a problem so far is VW. They want a written letter!

kinger101

Not having names on utility bills isn't a problem. I've moved into lodging temporarily when moving to a different part of the country while I was waiting for my house to sell and needed to get a better understanding of the new area before buying. Didn't affect my ability to later get a mortgage.

You do need to change your addresses on electoral roll etc. You want your credit history to reflect what you've actually done. Any inconsistencies could become a problem to lenders - they like to be able to join the dots. Also, the redirect is not 100 percent effective, and you wouldn't want to miss a bill or parking fine because of this.

davidmcn

Changing address isn't a "pain", it's pretty straightforward and can mostly be done online. Bear in mind things like car insurance may be invalid if you're using the wrong address, and you might fall off the electoral roll at the old address once the new residents provide their details.