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3 months abroad on Barclays residential mortgage requiring consent?

Hi all,
My partner and I bought our house a year ago and have a Barclays residential mortgage for it. We are planning a 3-months trip abroad for work in summer and are unsure whether we need to ask or inform the lender, so any advice welcome. 

Our mortgage terms state:
1. "You agree to use your property as your main home or the main home of your spouse [, ... other family members]"
2. "You agree t
o get our written consent before you let, or share possession with your property"

The Barclays info on Consent to let info is here: https://www.barclays.co.uk/mortgages/existing-customer-centre/consent-to-let/ essentially saying that
a) We would need their consent to rent it out for 3 months to one party.
b) We would NOT need their consent to make it available via AirBnB for 3x30days to separate parties [subject to the other conditions].

I guess leaving it unoccupied (with friends/family checking things are ok from time to time) would be more in the spirit of b), if we can ensure our buildings insurance stays valid. 

Of course we plan to keep up the monthly payments while abroad.

Thanks in advance!
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Comments

  • Hi all,
    My partner and I bought our house a year ago and have a Barclays residential mortgage for it. We are planning a 3-months trip abroad for work in summer and are unsure whether we need to ask or inform the lender, so any advice welcome. 

    Our mortgage terms state:
    1. "You agree to use your property as your main home or the main home of your spouse [, ... other family members]"
    2. "You agree to get our written consent before you let, or share possession with your property"

    The Barclays info on Consent to let info is here: https://www.barclays.co.uk/mortgages/existing-customer-centre/consent-to-let/ essentially saying that
    a) We would need their consent to rent it out for 3 months to one party.
    b) We would NOT need their consent to make it available via AirBnB for 3x30days to separate parties [subject to the other conditions].

    I guess leaving it unoccupied (with friends/family checking things are ok from time to time) would be more in the spirit of b), if we can ensure our buildings insurance stays valid. 

    Of course we plan to keep up the monthly payments while abroad.

    Thanks in advance!
    Neither your mortgage terms or the terms of consent to let allow you to move out and operate the property as an Airbnb. You have a residential mortgage for a property in which you are supposed to occupy as your main residence. Consent to let allows you to amend the terms of the property to let it out but Barclays, like most/all lenders, only allow you to let the property on an AST, PRT or Occupation Contract depending on whether the property is in England, Scotland or Wales, not turn it into a holiday let. 

    You could also run into issues with your council tax if you turn it into a short term rental and your home insurance will almost certainly not cover you for this. 

    Personally I think your plan is risky and you could easily find yourself without somewhere to live when you decide to return home. If you do decide to keep the property empty, which is the lesser of two evils in my opinion, you’ll need to check your insurance policy to see how long you can leave the property unoccupied, 60 days is the norm I think, so you’d need to purchase additional unoccupied insurance. 
  • This all comes down to your appetite for risk.

    As much as it is not allowed the likelihood it will cause issues for 3 months is (well that's up to you to decide given the information above)

    We are risk adverse so will play by the rules.
  • MasterplanC
    MasterplanC Posts: 74 Forumite
    Second Anniversary 10 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 26 November 2023 at 10:33AM

     _Penny_Dreadful said:
    Neither your mortgage terms or the terms of consent to let allow you to move out and operate the property as an Airbnb. You have a residential mortgage for a property in which you are supposed to occupy as your main residence. Consent to let allows you to amend the terms of the property to let it out but Barclays, like most/all lenders, only allow you to let the property on an AST, PRT or Occupation Contract depending on whether the property is in England, Scotland or Wales, not turn it into a holiday let. 

    You could also run into issues with your council tax if you turn it into a short term rental and your home insurance will almost certainly not cover you for this. 

    Personally I think your plan is risky and you could easily find yourself without somewhere to live when you decide to return home. If you do decide to keep the property empty, which is the lesser of two evils in my opinion, you’ll need to check your insurance policy to see how long you can leave the property unoccupied, 60 days is the norm I think, so you’d need to purchase additional unoccupied insurance. 
    Thanks for your view and the pointers for potential issues. I am not sure what you suggest we best do, cancel our work abroad? Just to be clear, our plan wasn't to use the AirBnB option, but it is explicitly mentioned on the Barclays terms of consent so I thought that is helpful. It's not like we are moving out, as basically all of our things will remain here even though we won't be. As a scientist, find it hard to imagine it is impossible to legally spend 3 months abroad for research while owning a residential property to return to afterwards. But of course the lenders have their terms and it's not a common situation. 

    If we were planning on selling the house, how would that change the situation of leaving it unoccupied for 3 months?
  • 3 month let ?  Depending on who you rent to and their circumstances you might return and find they have an AST and you've none of the paperwork to permit you to evict.


    Just check with lender they're OK for you to leave & have it empty 3 months 
  • _Penny_Dreadful
    _Penny_Dreadful Posts: 1,360 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Second Anniversary Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 26 November 2023 at 11:08AM

     _Penny_Dreadful said:
    Neither your mortgage terms or the terms of consent to let allow you to move out and operate the property as an Airbnb. You have a residential mortgage for a property in which you are supposed to occupy as your main residence. Consent to let allows you to amend the terms of the property to let it out but Barclays, like most/all lenders, only allow you to let the property on an AST, PRT or Occupation Contract depending on whether the property is in England, Scotland or Wales, not turn it into a holiday let. 

    You could also run into issues with your council tax if you turn it into a short term rental and your home insurance will almost certainly not cover you for this. 

    Personally I think your plan is risky and you could easily find yourself without somewhere to live when you decide to return home. If you do decide to keep the property empty, which is the lesser of two evils in my opinion, you’ll need to check your insurance policy to see how long you can leave the property unoccupied, 60 days is the norm I think, so you’d need to purchase additional unoccupied insurance. 
    Thanks for your view and the pointers for potential issues. I am not sure what you suggest we best do, cancel our work abroad? Just to be clear, our plan wasn't to use the AirBnB option, but it is explicitly mentioned on the Barclays terms of consent so I thought that is helpful. It's not like we are moving out, as basically all of our things will remain here even though we won't be. As a scientist, find it hard to imagine it is impossible to legally spend 3 months abroad for research while owning a residential property to return to afterwards. But of course the lenders have their terms and it's not a common situation. 

    If we were planning on selling the house, how would that change the situation of leaving it unoccupied for 3 months?
    For a 3 month period I would leave the property unoccupied and ensure it was suitably insured. 

    Who said it was impossible for you to live abroad for 3 months and then return to your residential property? I said it would be risky, not impossible. 
  • user1977
    user1977 Posts: 16,687 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Sixth Anniversary Photogenic Name Dropper

     _Penny_Dreadful said:
    Neither your mortgage terms or the terms of consent to let allow you to move out and operate the property as an Airbnb. You have a residential mortgage for a property in which you are supposed to occupy as your main residence. Consent to let allows you to amend the terms of the property to let it out but Barclays, like most/all lenders, only allow you to let the property on an AST, PRT or Occupation Contract depending on whether the property is in England, Scotland or Wales, not turn it into a holiday let. 

    You could also run into issues with your council tax if you turn it into a short term rental and your home insurance will almost certainly not cover you for this. 

    Personally I think your plan is risky and you could easily find yourself without somewhere to live when you decide to return home. If you do decide to keep the property empty, which is the lesser of two evils in my opinion, you’ll need to check your insurance policy to see how long you can leave the property unoccupied, 60 days is the norm I think, so you’d need to purchase additional unoccupied insurance. 
    Thanks for your view and the pointers for potential issues. I am not sure what you suggest we best do, cancel our work abroad?
    Leaving it empty (once you've sorted the insurance) seems the lowest-risk and least-hassle option.
  • Thanks, that's sound advice. I did say "legally spend 3 months abroad" which one would hope implies one is not at risk of losing the property. 
  • Thanks, that's sound advice. I did say "legally spend 3 months abroad" which one would hope implies one is not at risk of losing the property. 
    Again, nobody said it was impossible to legally spend 3 months abroad. I also never said anything about losing the property, I said you could easily find yourself without somewhere to live, which is not the same as losing a property. It just means that you may not be able to occupy the property when you decide to return because there’s someone else occupying it.  
  • Ok, but that mostly concerns the case when there is someone occupying it in the meantime through short term let. Or I guess someone breaks in and squats illegally.
  • Ok, but that mostly concerns the case when there is someone occupying it in the meantime through short term let. Or I guess someone breaks in and squats illegally.
    If you need to move back into the property as soon as you return you run the risk of someone you’ve let the property to, whether it’s a licence to occupy or some kind of tenancy, not 

    That’s the point. It is not unheard of for people to let their homes out, be it on a short term or longer term basis, and when they want to return finding that the licencee or tenant won’t budge. Then you have to do everything by the book to ensure you don’t end up facing criminal charges. I have heard of cases where landlords have inadvertently created an AST through Airbnb and that is a tough one to sort out. 
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