SecretSquirrel

Hi all

Some of you may remember me from a few years ago (started life here as turkeytickler).

After 3 years back in the UK me and Mrs SS + 2 baby SS's are seriously thinking of come back to live in NZ for good.

We bought a house here in the UK at the top of the market and despite the downturn probably have a small amount of equity left - we have heard things are bottoming out in the housing market so would like to hold on to the house, and let it out for a few years (my best friend is a local letting Agent so I have someone trustworthy to manage the property)...

Has anyone else done this? If so - what are the implications for the Mortgage? Do you have to transfer to a Buy to Let Mortgage? Any advice gratefully received...

Thanks

SS

Jo-Chris

Hi,

We are hoping to let our flat once we get to NZ. Having spoken to our mortgage broker he said that our provider will give us 3yrs grace if we rent it out but then we would probably have to transfer to a buy to let mortgage. The problem was that we had to remortage a few months ago and as we still haven't got our visa's we didnt want to get a buy to let mortgage in case we didnt get out to NZ!As you are nt supposed to live in the property!?
All very complicated!
Jo & Chris

Cape Blue

Depends upon your approach to risk, many people don't tell their mortgage lenders as the lender takes it as an opportunity to squeeze more money out of you on a worse BTL rate.

make sure you have lettings insurance (try Homelet and look at their products) so you are covered for having tenants re building ins. You might find their emergency repair and legal fees worth having as well

P85 and NRL1 when you leave

Make sure you cost in the lettings agents 10-15% (+ VAT!) and Corgi etc annual costs when you examine the profitability.

Be realistic in what you put aside for wear & tear, 50 quid pcm would be a minimum IMO - boilers breaking, repainting every few years, carpet replacing and so on.

lapsed kiwi

Hi SS = good to see you have seen sense at last!
We were totally up front with Abbey re our move and they let us stay on the same mortgage. We had been with them for 3 years and are still with them 3 years later. We changed to a landlords insurance policy though.
I'm sure you've done the sums. My only word of caution would be to make sure you can handle tenant-free periods - we had one of five months. Good luck!

Tan0410

We were also upfront with the bank... charged us to apply but let us rent out with our existing mortgage. However, when the mortgage ran out and we tried to remortgage they stated that we had to move to a buy-to-let.

Life was busy and we delayed doing this... never got round to it and were paying the SVR....and the interest rates then plummeted

Sorry, know this doesn't help all the savers out there

What I would like to know is whether anyone has successfully got equity out whilst only having permission to let rather than a formal buy to let mortgage?

lapsed kiwi

I tried this but Abbey said no - despite me owning about 60% equity of the house and only wanting to reduce this to about 50%. I didn't push it too much because I thought they were being quite good about letting us keep the residential mortgage
We recently dropped off the fixed rate and are on the SVR
It would be good to refix but I'm guessing that would be difficult low income in UK now, and I don't want a buy to let with the rates they charge

SecretSquirrel

Hi everyone - and many thanks for all your replies - we have decided to stay put for now - the catalyst was a possible vol. redundancy but we decided its pretty foolish giving up a decent job during a recession when you have 2 kids to feed... so we are going to stick with the UK for a couple of years but heart still set back on the good life in nz..... (god I wish we'd stayed now :curse

lapsed kiwi

When you have time, I'd love to hear your story. I mean, it wasn't as if you had a mild aversion to NZ - you detested everything about this place, and I hate to say it, the sausages haven't changed much in the last 18 months (although I still like them, especially the venison ones). What has happened to change your mind so radically? Has the UK really gone down the pan recently or what? If you tell us, I promise not to gloat or say "I told you so"