Renting Out My Flat
Discussion
Marty Funkhouser said:
Whats the worst that could happen if I didnt inform the bank?
Depends on the bank. Depends if you are looking to get another mortgage at the same time.Also depends on the letting agents. One round here will not take a property on without sight of either permission to let, or a btl offer.
Plenty of people don't inform their lender when they let, and i suspect the vast majority of them get away with it. Those that don't stand a chance of absolutely nothing happening, or getting reamed by the bank.
Tim's point about insurance is very true. Although if you have a block policy you might not have to worry so much.
scotal said:
Timmy35 said:
Having said that, how are they going to find out anyway? I've never heard of a man from ABC Bank turning up at your house just to check it's you living there.
Usually its something dumb like a tenant applying for credit on that address. But of a bugger really given how tight it is getting BTL finance these days.
Marty Funkhouser said:
Whats the worst that could happen if I didnt inform the bank?
In my experience, if you tell them it's a temporary measure - in my case to take an out of area job for a while - they let you stay on the same, residential mortgage with a green light to rent it out.
bastids. Timmy35 said:
Marty Funkhouser said:
Whats the worst that could happen if I didnt inform the bank?
I imagine your building and contents insurance might be void, and also legally speaking you would be breaking the terms of the mortgage so they could require immediate repayment. Having said that we all know perfectly well that there are hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country who have bought a new place, let out the old one and forgotten to tell the bank.
Having said that, how are they going to find out anyway? I've never heard of a man from ABC Bank turning up at your house just to check it's you living there.
Edited by Timmy35 on Tuesday 27th July 10:56
Ultimately if the Mo. Co. think you are taking the mickey and want to go the whiole hog they could make yor life very difficult with little effort if you didn't notify them you were letting the property out.
Timmy35 said:
Having said that, how are they going to find out anyway? I've never heard of a man from ABC Bank turning up at your house just to check it's you living there.
Very easy for banks to hook into various databases (electoral roll, utilities, credit checking, etc) if they do want to check, and it would be very easy to automate. These days with new mortgage business falling off a cliff, they seem to be spending their time doing some more checking of existing ones.Personally, as a tenant, I always ask. I've been renting a property before (during the mortgage/BTL boom years) where the landlord took out a residential mortgage, never moved into the place, made 2 payments before giving up, and a year later a solicitor's letter arrived telling me of the court date for the repossession hearing. As it was, they arranged a deal with him to pay off the arrears and got a suspended possession order instead, and I gave my notice and left. Had they got the possession order that day, I could legally have been kicked out that afternoon.
andy400 said:
Marty Funkhouser said:
Whats the worst that could happen if I didnt inform the bank?
In my experience, if you tell them it's a temporary measure - in my case to take an out of area job for a while - they let you stay on the same, residential mortgage with a green light to rent it out.They said I can do it for 6 months no problems but any longer I would have to apply for a BTL mortgage....so I guess thats better than nowt.
This site was useful to us when we started renting out my wife's house after she moved in with me.
We started out using a managing agent purely to avoid hassle, but as we soon found out, 'Fully Managed' doesn't necessarily mean it's plain sailing.
If something needed doing, they would delay informing us then tell is it was urgent and that they had someone they could send in right away, hoping we would do that (and pay the inflated fees) rather than find a tradesman of our own.
They passed on every comment from the tenant as if it were the end of the world, constantly phoning us telling us there were problems we had to get sorted immediately (we found out later from the tenant themselves that many of the issues were not urgent at all).
The first tenant had come directly from Greece and didn't understand about allowing the steam to escape from the bathroom after a shower or bath - the resulting condensation in the loft caused £300 worth of electrical problems - there was black mould on the walls for (we found out later) months, indicating a problem, yet the agent was supposed to be doing a bi-monthly check on the property.
There were many more incidents, but in the end we sacked the managing agents and now pay my brother in law half what we paid them to manage it for us, we passed the reduction on to the tenant in a rent cut (he's been with us for 4 years now and keeps the place spotless) so now everyone is happy.
There are good managing agents I'm sure, but as an unregulated profession, you have no way of knowing who the decent ones are unless you get a recommendation.
We started out using a managing agent purely to avoid hassle, but as we soon found out, 'Fully Managed' doesn't necessarily mean it's plain sailing.
If something needed doing, they would delay informing us then tell is it was urgent and that they had someone they could send in right away, hoping we would do that (and pay the inflated fees) rather than find a tradesman of our own.
They passed on every comment from the tenant as if it were the end of the world, constantly phoning us telling us there were problems we had to get sorted immediately (we found out later from the tenant themselves that many of the issues were not urgent at all).
The first tenant had come directly from Greece and didn't understand about allowing the steam to escape from the bathroom after a shower or bath - the resulting condensation in the loft caused £300 worth of electrical problems - there was black mould on the walls for (we found out later) months, indicating a problem, yet the agent was supposed to be doing a bi-monthly check on the property.
There were many more incidents, but in the end we sacked the managing agents and now pay my brother in law half what we paid them to manage it for us, we passed the reduction on to the tenant in a rent cut (he's been with us for 4 years now and keeps the place spotless) so now everyone is happy.
There are good managing agents I'm sure, but as an unregulated profession, you have no way of knowing who the decent ones are unless you get a recommendation.
Marty Funkhouser said:
Think you may be right.
It may all be moot though, just checked with my bank and they are saying I'd have to reapply for a buy to let mortgage.....
Most will let you rent it for a short period of time without applying for a buy to let. I think mine let me rent it out for 12 months just say you have a contract with work that requires you to move away from the area. It may all be moot though, just checked with my bank and they are saying I'd have to reapply for a buy to let mortgage.....
BoRED S2upid said:
Marty Funkhouser said:
Think you may be right.
It may all be moot though, just checked with my bank and they are saying I'd have to reapply for a buy to let mortgage.....
Most will let you rent it for a short period of time without applying for a buy to let. I think mine let me rent it out for 12 months just say you have a contract with work that requires you to move away from the area. It may all be moot though, just checked with my bank and they are saying I'd have to reapply for a buy to let mortgage.....
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