shecha

Hi everyone,

Well, we've made a decision to go to Brisbane on 3rd March, whether we have sold the house or not

We've got savings of about £12,000.00 and once the house has sold we will have another £34,000.00.

We are sick of being messed around & stressed out by house buyers/solicitors, so we're gonna give Power of Attorney to hubby's dad and go with just the savings!!! :scared:

The exchange of contracts are supposed to be signed on 25th Feb but now the first time buyer at the bottom of the chain has a problem with his mortgage provider requiring a specialist report on our buyers flat. So this date is looking unlikely and of course the whole chain could fall apart if the first time buyer pulls out. This means finding new buyers etc. If this happens then we will instruct the Estate Agents to keep the house on the market until an exchange of contracts.

Are we totally mad or what!!!! :scared:

We have got relatives to stay with until we find jobs which will help but I am concerned that £12,000.00 won't be enough, especially as we will have to continue paying the mortgage on the UK house.

Has anyone else done this or similar and has this worked out ok??? Honest opinions/experiences needed!

Cheers guys

Shell

NKSK

Hi
You might want to have a look at the thread I started earlier today.
We are in a similar position but we have gone a little bit further and decided to pull the house off the market for a couple of years. (See details in the posting).

We have got a tenant and so that makes it a little easier but when the time comes to sell the house from the other side of the world it ain't going to be a walk in the woods!

Nice to know that somebody else is taking the gamble though - good luck!!

Alex Hall

Is it better to have a few more months of stress while in the UK and then move to Oz knowing there is no more stress hanging over you from the UK.. I am guess there will be enough stress in the first few weeks of Oz with job hunting, finding somewhere to rent etc....

Or is it better to go to Oz asap and accept you will still have stress from the UK hanging over you that may mean you have to reconsider things if, worst case, the house doesn't sell....

The sensible approach to me is the first one, stay and get the house sold, and then use Oz as a completely new start, however I can understand your frustrations...

good luck whichever option you choose!



Alex

biggy

we came here before selling the house....well before it was complete.....we left hubbys parents in charge of it....we got the money through after about 5 months

Good Luck

of2oz

We are in the same position I have job to go to and need to get out there, so we fly on the 7th March. The houses sale is progressing but may not exchange before we leave. We have about the same amount of money as you to go now and more when the sales goes through. We are keeping everything crossed that it goes through as planned.
Good luck with it all.
Steve & Paula

twiss

We bought our house in Wales seven years ago. For four of those years we lived in Portugal and didn't have any trouble renting it out at a price high enough to cover the mortgage and wear and tear. We paid an estate agent 10% to deal with/ find tenants - well worth it!

We're going to Australia in April and will do exactly the same. Maybe we will sell our house here eventually and buy one there, but, so long as you can cover the mortgage, why rush?

Selling up and therefore making it difficult to return if you want to sounds madder to me!

DiveInstructor

Hi,

I reckon I'd be likely to reduce the price to guarantee a sale. Housing market here in UK has slowed up and if you are relying on extra funds, maybe a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush?

Good luck whatever you do. I'm sure things will work out as long as you remain realistic about a sale price.

Best of luck.

DagBoy

I put my house on the market a few months before I moved out here. I could have rented it, but rent would not have covered the mortgage and I thought it would be easier/quicker to sell if it was empty. It finally sold 18 months later (thanks largely to my evil neighbour putting people off). The UK mortgage (+endowment +insurance etc.) was over £1k a month, which was about $3k from here. The only reasons I managed to cover that expense were that I cashed in a TESSA (£3k), used up some savings (£4k), had a well paid job here (could actually just spare $3k a month) and was living with MrsD who had a relatively cheap mortgagee. I had no choice in the matter really as I had arranged to transfer within the company and had a leaving/starting date fixed, but we could have done without the stress. We could not get a new mortgage here until I was shot of the UK house so we lived in limbo for 18 months (Limbo is one of the seedier suburbs, next door to Squalor).

So, in answer to your question, it can be done, but I would not recommend it. It really depends on how much your mortgage will be and how much you enjoy financial stress.

Cheers,

DagBoy

Stormz

If you could live off the £12000 (12,000.00 GBP = 28,490.45AUD - www.tranzfers.com.au ) while you sort out job(s) then I`d say get the house rented out (if possible) while you are in Oz. You can sell it anytime, or you could come back to the UK in the future if Oz doesn`t agree with you.

It`s good you`re staying with family, so will we. You can`t get a mortgage in Oz until you`ve been employed for 6 months, so bear in mind you`ll have to stay with family for at least 7 months (if you get a job straight away), or rent somewhere yourselves. When you do buy a house you can get $7000 from the govt. to help out.

If you def want to stay in Oz and have no thoughts of ever coming back then yeah, sell the house (even for a lower price) and enjoy the £45,000.00 ($107,173.80) in your new life.

shecha

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your honest replies, I do really appreciate it.

What I forgot to add to my thread was that we have to go to Oz by the end of April to validate and we don't want to waste more money validating and then coming back. Plus my hubby has put in his notice and has to leave his job by mid March anyway and we would then have no income at all here and we would be eating into our savings.

Also, if our current house chain falls though within the next few weeks, we are not left with enough time realistically to find a new buyer and complete the house sale by end of April anyway.

The more I think about it, the more I think we have no choice but to go to Oz regardless of the house sale situation. But I am worried about the stress issue of having an empty house to sell from the other side of the world which we still have to pay the mortgage/insurance on.

Oh God, I really hope and pray the exchnage of contracts does go through on 25th of Feb as planned!!!!!!

Cheers again!

Shell

shecha

Hi Dagboy,

Thanks for your response, just got another quickie question of you don't mind.

When you had your house empty whilst trying to sell it, was there any issue with the insurance company about it being empty??? I'm wondering whether I should tell them or not that it's gonna be empty, coz I'm concerned they won't insure it if it's not being lived in.

Did you tell your insurance company that it would be empty until sold???

Cheers

Shell

RichS

I would seriously look at getting the estate agent to tennant the place out for you for a year or so. You'll most likely find you make more money than the mortgage costs. I did this and we found we were making profit (beware the ATO here though).
Being realistic - If $12,000 isn't enough, its unlikely $34,000 will be either. ?It equates to about $28,000 which is a fair wedge of cash to kick off with. You'll just have to forego the "I'm still on hoilday" bit you might otherwise have had for the first week or so.

owieb

We had two properties in the UK when we left; a flat in London and a place in the country. We planned on selling the country one before leaving and rented out the London one.

We couldn't sell the country one in time so just left for Perth (and rented it out), we had about £5K in cash. The rent on the London property covered it's mortgage, but the country one left us about £1K a month mortgage to pay.

Luckily we found jobs in Australia within a couple of weeks so could start earning some income.

It took about 12 months from when we left to sell the country property; we then sold the London flat a couple of months after that.

The main reason for selling the properties were the tenants! We had no end of problems with them not paying; just walking out; moaning and groaning about everything. Both were let through agents, but they really didn't give "two hoots" so long as they got their commission!

It just wasn't worth the trouble for us; and when the tenants didn't pay we were left having to cover the mortgage from Australia which isn't easy on Australian wages.

Many people have let their properties successfully; for us it was more hassle than it was worth.

However, we still wouldn't have changed how we did anything. For us it was more important to get to Australia sooner rather than later. There were tough times when dealing with estate agents in the UK, but we had a really good solicitor who took control of everything and pushed the sales through.

sassie

Hi Shell. I know exactly where you're coming from. My partner and I have also made the decision of heading out to oz before the house sells, hopefully flying out on 4th April to Brisbane. The house has been on the market almost a year (with one sale falling through), so we are going to leave everything in the capable hands of our estate agents and our solicitors (who incidentally are my current employers!).

We are in the fortunate position though of being able to pay off the mortage before we go, and having family to stay with out in Australia, will obviousyly take a lot of the financial pressure off.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide to do

DagBoy

I kept up both the buildings and contents insurance (different insurers),even though it was empty. I informed them it was empty pending sale. I think one lot got a bit shirty about it when renewing the policy some months later and I think they no longer covered me for damage caused by break ins because it was standing empty. Other than that it was fine. I also told the mortgage company (told them - didn't ask them) that I was leaving etc. they were happy enough just as long as the buildings cover was kept up and the mortgage payments were made.

I was very glad that I had kept up all the insurance later as I ended up having to fight my evil bitch neighbour from hell through the courts over a collapsed garden wall and a liability claim (but that's a story for another time)

Cheers,

DagBoy