coxfamuk

We have a sneaky feeling that the buyer of our house is going to muck us around and then say that he is only prepared to pay £265K which was his original offer (we wanted £280k, said we would settle for £275K but we ended up accepting £270K). We asked for a 28 day exchange, which he agree to and 14 days later he still hasn't booked a survery , sending major warning bells in our direction. So, we are now looking at remortgaging for an interest only buy-to-let mortgage, borrowing a bit more money on our mortgage for set up costs in Australia and renting it out. We figure that if we go ahead with the sale all well and good, but if he comes any nonsense, we want to be in a position to tell him to f***** right off. It is something we hadn't considered before, but the numbers add up i.e. the rent should cover the mortgage. Equally, we won't have anywhere the deposit we would have liked in Oz, so as I said the ideal would be to sell.

Still, I feel a bit better knowing there is a back-up plan!

caz60

We also are looking at that as we had a cash buyer on a £300,000 house but they pulled out due to being offered a job down south. But you really have to look into, as we were told that things like tax etc can get complicated !! unless you know any different ?

worzel

Good luck with it. As I am sure you know we have similar problems. We are also considering renting our house if our buyer continues to muck us about. We have the same concerns so are also considering giving power of attorney to the solicitors and getting them and the estate agents to deal with a sale in our absence. I refuse to use our on arrival accomodation to make a validation trip and let that bitch screw up our plans. It would be quite pleasant to do it to her even if the sale was back on just to get back at her but I guess I can't afford that much even for something so pleasurable.

Bix

Know where you are coming from.

Here's a thread for some info and debate that you may find of some use......


http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=280955

claire edwards

If it was me, I would put the house back on the market, you will soon know if they are serious or not.

Best of luck.

Claire

Mrs Jackaroo

This is something that we are doing too. We decided last week to take the house off the market as all of the people interested in had not sold their property. We plan to remortgage and go to either Leeds & Holbeck or C&G for an interest only Buy to Let mortgage (they've got excellent deals at the moment). Since making this decision we've just had a call from the Estate Agents asking if they can do a viewing with a couple who are currently living in rented accomodation - no chain, great!! God we make a decision one minute and its all thrown up in the air the next! Best thing I think is like you say, make the change on the mortgage anyway and if it all collapses around you you can tell them to sod off and rent it out!

Good luck!

the3leadbetters

we tried buy to let but ever mortgage lender very Rockie about being out of the country only one interested is rsb offshore mortgage interest only 5.5% mini lend 100,000 but if rate gos up you could get burnt no one else interested .we are trying to rent are house out now ,best of luck

coxfamuk

We spoke to a guy from Money Extra (a web-based financial advisor) and he didn't seem to think that there would be a problem getting a buy-to-let mortgage with us leaving the country. We would sign over power of attorney to my mum who is still in the country, so I can't imagine that would present a problem.

Anyway, it doesn't seem we will need to rent out because we spoke to our agent yesterday and it appears that our buyers are still quite keen and they are going to be getting the survey done this week, so our fingers are still crossed.

webgum

Our house in the UK was mortgaged with Nationwide and when we decided to rent rather than sell, we only had to sign some declaration or other and that was it. To be reviewed in 3 years time ( by which time we will have hopefully sold anyway). The only stipulations seemed to be about who we couldn't rent it out to (DSS, students etc) which was fine by me.

helinuk

Oh dear you poor things just when you thought it was all ok too.

The risk with renting is whether you find a good tenant 100% of the time. We rented our house out when we lived in Asia. Out of 6yrs away we actually had tenants for 4yrs and still had the mortgage to pay, it took 6 months to find a tenant (Aussies). They moved on after 3 1/2yrs, it was empty for over 18mnths then Aussie friends used it for 4 months before we returned home.
If the tenants are good- ours were- the house was still in good shape just needed re decorating. But if you have people in who don't look after it you could be paying out to have it "made good".