How to rent out flat with cladding?

[Deleted User]

Hi, 

I've got a flat with help to buy. 

The cladding has just been discovered to be unsafe. We therefore can't sell or remortgage so can't even remortgage to buy out help to buy. 

We aren't living there as we moved cities with our baby when sale was agreed... This fell through so living with parents. 

We can't afford to keep flat and also pay for cladding etc. 

Can we rent out? 
If so what are the steps we need to take? Will help to buy and our mortgage let us out of our no rent clause (not sure if this is a thing?) or would we have to pay or reapply to get out of this? 

Do we need to pay solicitors to get a contract? 

Is it even legal to rent out a non fire safe flat? 

Many thanks. 

Slithery

Without permission from your lender you aren't allowed to let the property. As a remortgage is currently out of the question have you tried just asking for 'consent to let'?

Have you read Tenancies in Eng/Wales: Guides for landlords and tenants?

greatcrested

There's no specific law preventing you letting the poperty provided you have the correct consents (lender, HTB etc).

But there is a general 'duty of care' to your tenants. I don't believe this has been tested in court with regards to tenancies, but if the worst happened and the flat burned down killing the tenants........

Might be worth looking at terms of LL insurance too.

[Deleted User]

Slithery said:

Without permission from your lender you aren't allowed to let the property. As a remortgage is currently out of the question have you tried just asking for 'consent to let'?

Have you read Tenancies in Eng/Wales: Guides for landlords and tenants?

I've emailed my mortgage company and help to buy to see if possible. 

I did call help to buy and they said others do rent out with the cladding issue so I'm assuming that's actually fine. 

We will have either a fire watchman or an advance fire alarm system so I'm not worried about the ethical safe duty as its the same as if I was there. 

I'm was wondering what we would have to do in terms of contacts and paperwork etc? 

If we then managed to sell flat what is the minimum time we can then ask tenants to move? 

oldbikebloke

re HTB read this (easily found using a search engine)
Can you rent out a home bought with a Help to Buy ISA/Lifetime ISA? - Martin Lewis' Blog... (moneysavingexpert.com)

Slithery

Nadia91 said:
If we then managed to sell flat what is the minimum time we can then ask tenants to move? 

Currently it's taking at least a year to evict, and you can't even start this process until the tenancy is at least 6 months old. This is why you wait until the tenants have left before marketing the property. You need to decide whether you want to sell or let, you can't do both.

All irrelevant though, as under help to buy you aren't allowed to let the property. Unfortunately you just have to join the hundreds of thousands of other people in your situation until the government decides what it's going to do about it.

My suggestion would be to just move back in for a few years until the property is mortgageable again.

greatcrested

Nadia91 said:

Slithery said:

Without permission from your lender you aren't allowed to let the property. As a remortgage is currently out of the question have you tried just asking for 'consent to let'?

Have you read Tenancies in Eng/Wales: Guides for landlords and tenants?

I've emailed my mortgage company and help to buy to see if possible.
I did call help to buy and they said others do rent out with the cladding issue so I'm assuming that's actually fine.
We will have either a fire watchman or an advance fire alarm system so I'm not worried about the ethical safe duty as its the same as if I was there.
I'm was wondering what we would have to do in terms of contacts and paperwork etc? 

If we then managed to sell flat what is the minimum time we can then ask tenants to move? 

Sounds good re consents.

Re "what to do" read

Post 7: New landlords (1):advice & information :see links in next post
Post 8: New landlords (2): Essential links for further information
Post 9: Letting agents: how should a landlord select or sack?

Re "ask to leave" you can ask at any time and tenant might or might not agree. I suspect you really mean "legally force"!? As Slithery says (and subject to what your tenancy agreement might say too), you serve a Section 21 Notice which currently requires 6 months notice, followed by a 3-6 month period for court processes. Prior to Covide this was 2 months notice + 1-3 months, and depending when you start evicting, and what happens to Covid, we might return to those shorter timescales.

Post 4: Ending/renewing an AST: what happens when a fixed term ends? How can a LL or tenant end a tenancy? What is a periodic tenancy?

[Deleted User]

Thank you I'll read those links. 

There's no hope of selling now and I can't move back in as live and work in another city and have a baby