3 months abroad on Barclays residential mortgage requiring consent?

Emily_Joy

If you work at a university in UK, you might find that there will be a visitor to your university/department who is looking for accommodation exactly for the time you are abroad. This way you are certain they will leave by the time you are back and have some sort of reassurance that they won't ruin the place. When I was studying for PhD a professor from our department went to spend a semester in Berkeley and let his house to me very cheaply, basically I was house-sitting. For him, it was a piece of mind that the house is lived in, heated properly, and looked after. For me, it was very cheap accommodation that was very welcome during the months of thesis-writing & looking for jobs etc.  (His mortgage was paid by then, so there was no lender involved).

MasterplanC

Yes, that sort of solution would be nice - although that would still require approval from the lender in our case and as far as I can see the rent has to be at least the monthly payment, which is not expensive considering the size of the house but certainly too much for a PhD student.

Silvertabby

MasterplanC said:

Yes, that sort of solution would be nice - although that would still require approval from the lender in our case and as far as I can see the rent has to be at least the monthly payment, which is not expensive considering the size of the house but certainly too much for a PhD student.

Even as a house sitter, not an actual tenant, when he/she would live rent free in return for taking care of the house and garden?


If that doesn't work, do you have a trusted neighbour who could park on your drive, check the house every day, switch the lights on and off, etc.  Anything to make the house looked lived in?

MasterplanC

Silvertabby said:

MasterplanC said:

Yes, that sort of solution would be nice - although that would still require approval from the lender in our case and as far as I can see the rent has to be at least the monthly payment, which is not expensive considering the size of the house but certainly too much for a PhD student.

Even as a house sitter, not an actual tenant, when he/she would live rent free in return for taking care of the house and garden?


If that doesn't work, do you have a trusted neighbour who could park on your drive, check the house every day, switch the lights on and off, etc.  Anything to make the house looked lived in?

The residential mortgage conditions state that the only people who are permitted to live in the house are direct family, so we'd need to house sitter approved and I'd think the lender is likely to  fall back on the sort of "consent to let" type agreement. Although I am not sure whether the lender would care check how much rent has been received or such, but it is on the form.

Sure we can arrange for things to minimise potential trouble for an unoccupied property, but that doesn't really solve the mortgage side of things.

eddddy

Looking purely at the mortgage side of things - if, for example, a house sitter moved in, I guess some people would say "How would the bank find out?"

It would probably only be if somebody notified the bank - and who would do that?

I guess if the house sitter annoyed the neighbours (e.g. loud music); and the neighbours found out they weren't family members; and the neighbours suspected that you were breaching your mortgage terms; and the neighbours found out who your mortgage lender is; and the neighbours wrote a letter to your mortgage lender...

Would you use a house sitter who was likely to annoy your neighbours, and do you have neighbours who you suspect might react by contacting your mortgage lender?


And if that happened, in the first instance the bank would just send a letter telling you to stop (and hopefully you would be having your mail redirected to somebody trustworthy). So you'd have to plan what you'd do in those circumstances.