Out of country inbetween rentals & buying house in 6 months - implications?

kathof

Hello everyone, 

I'd much appreciate any help with the following scenario. I don't have any family in the UK, so not sure who to ask. Y'all seem so knowledgable!

My partner is finishing his job in August and not starting his new one until the start of November. We also need to move from one county to another for him to start his new job. We have decided, given that I can work from home, to travel to Europe and enjoy some months off over summer.
We are giving up our rental on the 5th August and want move into a new rental sometime in October. In between we are either (hopefully) out of the country (couple of months) or staying in airBnB until we have signed a new rental contract. After renting for 6 months and getting to know the area, we are looking to buy our first house.

My questions are as follows:-
1) What are the implications of "being out of the country" and essentially not having a UK address. We are both UK citizens. Would you recommend registering at a friends address e.g car insurance, council tax etc. until we have found our new rental?
2) Are there any implications of having an "address/living gap" of a couple of months when buying a house and looking for a morgage?

I hope I have described our situation well, please let me know if I need to clarify anything. Thank you for all your help.

Kat

yksi

1. The plan will still have an adverse affect on your credit file as you will have changed addresses which isn't ideal when lenders are looking for stability. I am not even touching the fact you will also be out of the UK as that is something I don't know the answer to (someone else will know better but I can't imagine this will be a good look when trying to get a mortgage, and will likely remove you from most mainstream lenders).
2. Your biggest problem will be months of him having no job/income and you might find that most lenders will only consider your income alone. There will likely be options available from a good broker but the plan you have in mind is not a stable income & address history that lenders like to see. They generally prefer to see six months minimum of stable income from a job so that they know his employment is likely to be ongoing and most will treat the first few months as probationary, regardless of whether he is on a probation period at work.

You may need to adapt the plan to be "come back to the UK and rent for six months once he starts work". You should be warned that you might have the same problems even finding a rental. The market is insane right now and people are struggling to get a place, often they are snapped up same day sight unseen, and agents can afford to be picky and reject anyone who doesn't meet 30x the income along with a 36x guarantor. Meaning they will say no to someone without a demonstrated stable work history and address history, simply because someone else looks like a better option. I used to work in property management and I have never seen it like this before.

onylon

I'm no expert on this but I did apply for a mortgage without a permanent address (Airbnb). It added about a week to our mortgage application but the bank was totally understanding. I would still recommend you keep your hotel receipts etc for 10 years. I did a pre-employment screening recently and they were much more concerned about the housing gap. I was told afterwards that I would not have passed the screening without evidence of my movements. Luckily I still had emails with the flight and hotel bookings.

macman

You won't need to pay council tax until you start your new tenancy in October. Car insurance: if the car can be stored off-road then SORN it. No insurance then required. However, if it suffers fire or theft then obviously you will have no cover. If necessary, register it at the address it's being kept at and insure for TPF&T only.

kathof

FURTHER INFO:

We are hoping to take the car with us to Europe. My partner has family in the UK - would it be a good idea to register with them? e.g. council tax?

My partners new job is a substantial job at a NHS hospital and he has his new contract already.

kingstreet

There are lenders who will accept UK citizens back in the UK on day one with a job offer and start date for job.

Seek independent broker help.

yksi

kathof said:

My partner has family in the UK - would it be a good idea to register with them? e.g. council tax?

But you won't be living there and so it will be dishonest - some would even say fraudulent (not to mention might mess your relatives up in terms of benefits or council concessions). It also won't match with your other proofs of address such as receipts for your accommodation. So no, I wouldn't do this.

You'd like to have a long extended working holiday and as you're realising this tends to have a big effect on the appearance of stability, which should be your most prized thing when applying to borrow a large amount of money. You might need to figure out which is more important to you. That might mean not ditching your rental.

Off-topic: what are you going to do if travelling through Europe isn't actually doable at the time? Delta is rising and the UK is ahead of everyone else, meaning, many countries might put the brakes on letting you do this.

kathof

Thank you everybody for tips and advice. We'll have to see how we best adapt our plan.