Selling before moving?
 

If you sold your home to move to canada, how early in the immigration process did you sell it and where did you stay as you waited to land? Eg family or rent?

As we're not sure whatll be the best time to advertise house for sale and to rent/stay with relatives (even though this may torture us all)???

Cheers all joyous

Re: Selling before moving?
 

For us selling the house was the catalyst for the process - we had been thinking about it for a while. Sat in rented till the paperwork was sorted.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

We are lucky to be in the situation where my parents have a holiday house in Spain. They spend winter there, so Ideally we would sell our house in October, and move into their house over winter, then head over to Canada in the following spring.

If that falls through, we will sell up, move into rented accomodation and head over asap.

We have out-grown our house, so even if we change our minds at the last second, we need a bigger house anyway.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

We put ours on the market when we received a PER, expecting it to take a while.

We planned to move out of the area if Canada fell through so were happy to rent if needed.

It took 8 months to sell, we found a rental house and one week after moving into it our medical requests arrived. Our initial renal period is 6 months but then it is on a monthly basis so we are basically good to go as long as there are no hiccups with the medicals.:fingerscrossed:

Our plan was to get to Canada as soon as we were able; we really didn't want to have those shiny visas in our passports and be stuck here desperate to sell our house. We did accept a low offer but again, we expected to.

Good luck to you, I assume you are at the start of the process?

Re: Selling before moving?
 

We came via PNP so knew things shouldn't take too long. After getting husband's job offer, we submitted application in the March and, at the same time, put the house on the market. House sold and we moved out in the September and stayed with my sister whilst we awaited visas. Visas arrived at the start of November so we booked our flights and flew over the following week. We stayed with my sister a total of 8 weeks. Once here, we again stayed in temporary accommodation for 7 weeks whilst we found a house to buy and move in.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Just something to note, its never advisable to sell your home without either a visa in place, or knowing that you shouldnt have issues getting one in whichever category you qualify.
You absolutely need to be ready to move when the time comes, but just be cautious that you dont sell up before being certain that you will be able to move to Canada!
Good luck!

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Sold a few months into the PR application process, which ultimately took 3 years to complete. Lived with MIL for 2 months, then moved to BC as a tourist, shipped everything over and started the process of applying for a TWP on the basis of starting my own business.

'Never advisable to sell without a visa in place...'? Some people are more risk tolerant than others. Broad statements like that don't work for everyone.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

I don't really hold with this advice, If you are lucky enough to sell your house you can always rent somewhere. if it turns out you dont get a visa, you can just buy something else where ever you are. It is likely that by being chain free buying will be simpler and you might even get a deal - I was offered nearly 20% off a property in the north east recently because I was chain free, and that was before I pushed them on price.

What you don't want to be doing is wasting your visa trying in vain to sell your house before you leave. I wouldn't recommend trying to sell after you have left the UK, 'cos your not in a position to motivate the estate agents, and it will just sit on the market.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

I would think you would need to look at how the houses are selling in your area, we have 2 houses, still for sale and been here 3 years now. Have dropped the price on both quite a lot, but nothing moving much in the area.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

All I am saying is be sure that you want to sell your home, before you are sure you can make the move! Its like any advice, some will take it, others wont!
Sure you can rent somewhere, but I know of people who have sold up, either haven't gained a visa in the first place, or come out on a one year work visa and then havent had it renewed for whatever reason, and have lost their family home in the UK. Those people kicked themselves for doing something so final, before being sure.
Just advice!
x

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Thanks for all the replies :)

I'm hoping we won't have too much if any issue with visa as were coming over on my occupation as a nurse - time will tell I guess!

Just worries about proving funds as well need house equity to help with done of it.

Starting process if gathering all the paperwork together so early days yet.

Cheers again joyous

Re: Selling before moving?
 

but they havent "lost" a home they have swapped it for a pile of cash, with which they can buy another - either in the UK or Canada if they wish.

If I were embarking on the paper trail agin, I would sell at my leisure hopefully for a (half)decent price before coughing up the visa fees etc. Thus avoiding the temptation of having to put a house on the market at the last minute at a very low price as I am about to jump on a plane.

If the OP need capital from the house to finance the move, it needs to liquid because as most of us know moving is expensive, Sobeys dont care if your money is in a 3 bed in chipping sodbury, you need cold hard cash when buying your groceries.

Actually the win win situation would be to sell your family house, and assuming you have some capital, trade down to a small flat, which you can live in while waiting to move and then rent out after you have gone. thus providing a small income, which might offset your canadian rent.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

And I guess a lot depends on your perspective in life. I absolutely agree that if you know you want to move, then you certainly dont want the sale of your home holding you back.......just my own advice is to be cautious before selling everything, its been the standard advice for years!
Mind you, whats standard about emigrating!!!:)
x

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Well we are awaiting LMO and put our house on the market over 6 months ago and have just taken it off to rent it.

I wanted to sell it before we moved but we couldn't. We stood to lose a heap of cash if we did (and I am talking too much to throw away).

We have been advised to rent it out and then sell it when the UK market picks up.

Thinking positively in my scenario it means if it all goes wrong out there and we don't get TWPs renewed or indeed we don't like it enough we have somewhere to come back to.

Thinking negatively it may hinder our chances of buying as we still have too much cash/equity tied up in the UK.

Like someone said earlier - a lot of it depends on your aversion to risk. I hate risk - hubby doesn't.

I think with the way the UK market is - decisions are getting made for some people for them (like us) so it actually makes the decision easier! :)

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Hey you,
Hope the waits not driving you too nuts! Ya know the ideal solution is for sure to rent for at least a year in the UK, rent for a year out here, and then decide after that! We did that, and it worked out well for us!
Plus renting means you get to be sure of the area you want to buy in!
x

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Bear in mind this could mean a wait of indeterminable length - you need to be prepared for that, particularly as it is predicted that the Eurozone (if not the world) is heading into a 2nd recession in 2012.

We put our house up for sale once we received the request for our passports to have the visa inserted. We had already been watching the local market for some time. After 4 weeks into the marketing, we had an acceptable offer (which is currently progressing), fingers x, we should be moving by Xmas and ready to go for March next year. Getting an offer for the house is almost as much about being realistic with your price/expectations as it is about the estate agent doing their job imo. Yes we have lost some of the equity due to the current recession, but we are still better off than not selling, as we really do need the money with us in Canada. It's as stated, a risk game - hold out for more money if the market improves, but if theres another dip you could lose even more. Your personal choice - no-one can or should influence that, as you need to live with the decision. For us we have still made a profit on the equity of the house - all we have lost is the additional money that was there if we had been able to sell before the recession hit.
I rented my house some time back when I went off to Oz/Far East for a year, something that was not smooth by any stretch of the imagination, and something that I do not wish to repeat again if at all possible. Again, each to their own in that respect.
Good luck with your decision, I really hope you find the resolution that works for you. :thumbup:

Re: Selling before moving?
 

some good points here.

You need to be realistic about asking price if you are selling , most of the stuff on the market round here(north east england) is overpriced by a good margin I suspect that this is due to greedy sellers appointing agents who come in with the highest market value, irrespective of what is achievable.

I think it will take 5-10 years for the market to properly recover, if you are renting this is the timescale you are going to be tying capital up for.

Renting out is fine so long as you have none or very small mortgage. Also you need to make sure you have a good agent to manage the rental in your absence, there are some horror stories out there.

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Totally agree with this. We rented ours out with a much respected property management company... They failed to tell us that their background checks had uncovered 2 CCJ's against our prospective tenants; because it was not their policy to disclose this information to landlords at that time (They have since changed their policies!!). Our tenants paid for 4 months and then stopped! It took us 9 months to get them removed by the courts... It has cost us over £10k in lost income and court\solicitors fees. The property management company had a dreadful tenancy agreement without a break clause, which favoured the tenants every step of the way (this has also now been changed). We also later discovered that the lady renting our house was actually on police remand for fraud at the time of signing the agreement - which again they never caught with their background checks...

Thankfully we have now sold the house and actually exchanged contracts today... It still feels unreal! :huh:

The estate agents were fabulous and once we regained possession of our house; it sold within 4 weeks and has only taken 7 and a half weeks from start to exchange (completion on 25th November).:D

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We had no idea how big a tie it would be, still owning a property in the UK. We never appreciated how much grief renting could be (even with a supposedly good management company). We actually knew within 3 months of living here, that we wanted to stay - but even if things had gone smoothly with our rental; we would have had to have waited until the year lease on our UK home was over before moving forward here.

If I could go back and do it again, I would have sold up once we had received our completed medicals. Even if things had not worked out here, we would have had a lump sum to start back in the UK with. As it was, our first year was made very much harder, because we were constantly being pulled back to deal with problems in the UK.. And trust me; you will have enough to deal with, without heaping more potential problems on your shoulders.:unsure:

Everything is a risk… but if I had a choice; I would rather be in control of my choices then have someone else make choices and decisions on my behalf.

Good Luck with whatever you decide :fingerscrossed:

Re: Selling before moving?
 

Sorry to hear you guys had such a nightmare, but glad its all over now.
x

Re: Selling before moving?
 

As we are considering renting out our place in the UK, would you mind letting us know who it the mamagement company that let you dow was? If you don't want to say on here, could you PM us?

Cheers