Selling house. Want to leave vacant and save money

Lee274 · 9 January 2018 at 4:23PM

Good afternoon all,

Myself and my wife have decided to sell our house and move to a bungalow because she was seriously ill last year and it left her with some side effects. We are mortgage free

Our idea is to sell pack all our belongings into storage, and move in with my wifes parents which will enable us to save a bit more as we will have no bills to pay. Electricity, Gas, Water and perhaps even council tax will save us quite a bit of money over 3-6 months and help us to put a bit more into a new house. Even if it saves us £4-5000 it will give us that little more on our next house. Ive looked at storage and we are looking at £100 per month for the first 2 months and £200 per month after. Even with this outlay we can save a lot.

Are there any charges from the Gas,Elec and Water companies if we do this?? Is there a standing rate?

Is Council Tax discounted?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Regards

Lee

CommitedToChange · 9 January 2018 at 4:36PM

Sorry do you mean sell the house then move in with your parents? If so there will be no charges on your old place as you have sold it.

Or do you mean leave it empty while you try to sell it - in which case there may be council tax - it depends on your council, you'll need to pay water, gas and electric for whatever is used while it is empty if it's winter you may want to keep the heating on at times to make sure the pipes do't freeze. You'll also have to check your building insurance as some don't allow the properties to be empty for more than 60 days.

Your post is slightly confusing as to what you are planning to do.

davidmcn · 9 January 2018 at 4:42PM

Lee274 wrote: »

Are there any charges from the Gas,Elec and Water companies if we do this?? Is there a standing rate?

Possibly, but we don't know what tariffs you're on - so you'll need to check that yourself.

CIS · 9 January 2018 at 4:44PM

Lee274 wrote: »

Good afternoon all,

Myself and my wife have decided to sell our house and move to a bungalow because she was seriously ill last year and it left her with some side effects. We are mortgage free

Our idea is to sell pack all our belongings into storage, and move in with my wifes parents which will enable us to save a bit more as we will have no bills to pay. Electricity, Gas, Water and perhaps even council tax will save us quite a bit of money over 3-6 months and help us to put a bit more into a new house. Even if it saves us £4-5000 it will give us that little more on our next house. Ive looked at storage and we are looking at £100 per month for the first 2 months and £200 per month after. Even with this outlay we can save a lot.

Are there any charges from the Gas,Elec and Water companies if we do this?? Is there a standing rate?

Is Council Tax discounted?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Regards

Lee

You need to contact the local council re the council tax - if you're in England it's a delegated power and many councils offer a 0% discount on an unoccupied property.

pinklady21 · 9 January 2018 at 4:49PM

Are you intending leaving the house completely empty and putting all your furniture and other belongings in storage?
Check out how much storage you might need - probably more than you think. Have you approached an Estate Agent to ask whether there are any implications of selling the house completely empty?
If you are leaving it furnished, then you will need to insure them, and probably also leave the heating on to prevent the pipes freezing. So not sure how much cash you think you might actually save by moving out and living elsewhere - wherever you live you are going to have to contribute to your living costs, I would have thought.

eddddy · 9 January 2018 at 4:54PM

An average energy bill in the UK is about £1000 to £1500 per year (depending on the size of your house).

Band D council tax is £1400 per year on average (although band H might be double that).

So it might be optimistic to expect to save £4k to £5k in 3 to 6 months.

(As well as the storage costs, there's also the cost of a removal firm - unless you plan to do that yourself.)

Lee274 · 9 January 2018 at 4:55PM

CommitedToChange wrote: »

Sorry do you mean sell the house then move in with your parents? If so there will be no charges on your old place as you have sold it.

Or do you mean leave it empty while you try to sell it - in which case there may be council tax - it depends on your council, you'll need to pay water, gas and electric for whatever is used while it is empty if it's winter you may want to keep the heating on at times to make sure the pipes do't freeze. You'll also have to check your building insurance as some don't allow the properties to be empty for more than 60 days.

Your post is slightly confusing as to what you are planning to do.

Sorry, we actually want to move out and start saving whilst the house is being sold. It hasn't sold yet, but we think it could be benficial to move in to my in laws to give us a bit more to spend on a new house.

eddddy · 9 January 2018 at 5:14PM

Lee274 wrote: »

Sorry, we actually want to move out and start saving whilst the house is being sold. It hasn't sold yet, but we think it could be benficial to move in to my in laws to give us a bit more to spend on a new house.

In that case - your savings on electricity, gas and water will probably be very small. (You'll still have to pay standing charges.)

I'd guess that removal and storage costs would be much higher than your savings on bills.

But you could leave your furniture in the house anyway, until it's sold - you don't need to pay for storage.

But you will need to check up on insurance. Insuring a house which isn't being lived in is a challenge.

seashore22 · 9 January 2018 at 5:39PM

I honestly can't see this saving you any money and may even cost you more.

Advantages:
Utility bills - you would still have to spend some money especially during the colder months.

Disadvantages:
Storage - this will be very expensive for the contents of a whole house.
Payment to your inlaws to cover extra bills in their house - you don't mention this, but assume you will be paying them something for their kindness.
Empty houses are more vulnerable to criminals.
Insurance for an empty house will be tricky.
Empty houses sometimes take longer to sell.
Disgruntled inlaws - I would be upset if my child decided that they would do this when they had a perfectly good house to live in and wanted to save a minuscule amount of money.

There's probably more, but I'm sure others will come up with them.

Edit - you will need to pay twice to move the same furniture.

Not sure how real this story is to be honest.

Lucky_Duck_2 · 9 January 2018 at 5:59PM

seashore22 wrote: »

.
Empty houses are more vulnerable to criminals.
Insurance for an empty house will be tricky.
Empty houses sometimes take longer to sell..

All this, plus as noted above you need to either keep the heating system on or arrange for it to be drained to avoid the risk of pipes freezing and causing considerable damaged. (Lesson learnt the hard way)

EmmyLou30 · 9 January 2018 at 6:10PM

I think this is a case of penny pinching too far on the basis of flawed maths. Many councils now punish you with 150% council tax on empty homes to discourage it, or at least not give you a discount. Plus empty house insurance costs a small fortune....personally we paid as much for 3 months of it as the entire year of normal house AND contents insurance. Plus there are many stipulations about draining heating systems, water off, visits every 7 days etc etc. All in all you'll save very little and be a burden on the inlaws while you sponge off them.

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Selling house. Want to leave vacant and save money

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