Husband wants to rent our house out and I don't

[inappickle]

Really clashing with my husband about this and we just have such different opinions I’m not sure what to do. Financially we’re ok, he makes out it’s very doom and gloom and we do have a big mortgage but we earn £68k between us and I’m only working 3 days a week, we have an expensive car (£300 a month) and we don’t budget or skip on luxuries so we do have ways in which we could cut back, as well as extra earning potential if I was too go back full time if needed. We have a young child who has been in an expensive private nursery and another baby due soon.

My husband has an opportunity for us to live at his work, it’s secure employment and the accommodation is nice (nowhere near as nice as our current house) and in a nice area I will give it that we wouldn’t need to drive as much and would be walking distance to kids school etc. He is desperate to do so, it’ll cost us half the price of our mortgage inclusive of bills and he wants to live there and rent our house out. He says it’ll pay for our retirement and set us for life. I hate the idea of someone else living in my house, we designed it ourselves and it’s my home. I hate the idea of living somewhere that isn’t ours again. I hate the idea of living where he works so he never switches off. This is our family home we worked so hard to build and I don’t want to leave. He also talks about renting it out at what he could realistically get for it but it’s more than our mortgage and I feel like it’s just being part of the problem and ripping off people that need housing.

I want to enjoy our lives now, but he’s so set on sorting ourselves out ‘for life’ and that our retirement would be sorted we’d be able to travel and save up loads in the mean time and it all just seems too far fetched and at too big a cost

Who’s right here? Am I being too attached to the house and possibly missing a good opportunity or is he just getting caught up in this idea that being a private landlord will set him for life when it isn’t realistically that straightforward

I would make other economies before moving out of my home. I think that's a last resort

Perhaps you could suggest cutting discretionary expenditure, to show that you're on board with improving your financial situation by another means?

He pays 8% into his pension I think, I don't overpay mine no. I get it's important to have one but at the same time I want to enjoy life while I have it, not everyone makes it to their pension. Enjoying our lives with our young kids appeals to me more than overpaying during these early years, then do that when I'm a bit older? Am I missing something major?

I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs but I'm very skeptical it would be as good as he says! He is adamant it would set us for life and I think he has a very naive look on it all. Being a landlord has been a financial aspiration of his for years because he always says it's a free pension/passive income. It wouldn't happen until he could give me figures and exact breakdowns but I just don't like the idea. Seeing posts here from people who are landlords sort of cements that for me!

Foreign holidays won't happen for next couple of years with a small baby, by the time this baby is 3 and goes into funded hours both of our loans will be gone too so more income coming then. I just don't think we're in a bad enough situation to uproot our lives, of course we are tighter this year after wedding and house and a £4K holiday (usually only £1.8k but went big for honeymoon)

I just think I'd have to be a lot more desperate to do this. At the moment we are admittedly burning money, I'd rather cut back but still enjoy life and my home than all of this uprooting.

I'd definitely do it!

I think I'm missing something. Would this re accommodation be for life? After he retires? Otherwise you'll need to go back to your old house when he retires so it wouldn't be your pension IYSWYM?amp

i haven't read all the replies so not sure if it has been mentioned but rent received is regarded as unearned income and taxed as such. it used to be 40 percent.!!

No one's right or wrong here. You both have very good reasons for doing what you want to do. It's a matter of different, valid priorities.

I would choose as you would: a lovely family home is so much more important to me than extra income - not just for me but for my children and the whole family. That said, I would only say that if I had, or could put in place, a reasonable retirement plan.

But the thought of leaving my beautiful home until retirement? No thanks !

But your husband is entitled to feel differently. Not sure how you will resolve this one.

It won’t ‘set you up for life’ that’s for sure.

Deduct building insurance/maintenance/wear & tear costs/tax, etc from the rent. Factor the house being vacant for a few weeks/months between tenancies, you may have tenants at some stage who don’t pay rent on time, repainting house interior when a tenant moves out, etc, etc. Will you have to pay any rent towards the house you would be living in ? Will there be changes to your mortgage if your home is rented out rather than you living there.

Don’t be pressurised into doing this.

Tbh I would do it just so I could be within walking distance of school!

Go for it, I don’t see why you wouldn’t!!

Does the property attached to his work have bills included? How safe is his tourism job in the current climate (would living on site make it harder for them to get rid?) has he realised he might be taxed on the rent as a benefit in kind?

Id be very very tempted to do this. Not because it'll make you pots of money on letting the house. But because with the few hundred extra a month you can save you can be building a great future.

I can understand why you would be reluctant to leaves a house you have built and designed yourself. However I am think this is worth looking into, and would maybe consider doing it for 4-5 years, you could overpay your mortgage using the money you will save which will put you in a good position for the future, plus putting some savings away. However you and DH would need to get a lot more information on the potential costs of letting the place , whether your bank would agree it, there may be extra insurance to pay for, management costs or extra work to do if you manage it yourself. Tax implications as other have pointed out, the legal responsibilities that landlords have. He is being quite niave about this , there's no such thing as free money! I think you both need a lot more information before you can make a decision.
I'm interested to know how does your DH think this will set you up for life? As it (the house) will only provide an income if you never need to live there ever again. Which presumably you will. Or does he think he will be able to raise enough funds through doing this to buy another buy to let, or is he planning To put the extra funds into pensions? How much does he think you need to fund your retirement? I would suggest getting some financial planning advice to make sure his expectations are in line with the money that could be made or saved here.

Obviously we don't know anything about the work accommodation but are you happy that you can have your children live there safely and at a similar standard to your current home e.g have access to a garden. You know whether you're looking at a preoprty on a national trust site or digs in a hotel.

Also, have you checked that you can let your property out on your current mortgage?

Are you planning on leaving all your furniture (I wouldn’t if I rented out my place - lots of easily marked soft wood plus it’s all carefully chosen for me)? If not, factor in the cost of furnishing the house or alternatively charging less rent for unfurnished.

I thought most people with one or two BTL properties didn’t make money renting out a property - the profit comes from the equity built up. If you need to move back in on retirement, you won’t be able to realise any equity. Where is the ‘set for life’ coming from?

I don’t know what your mortgage is but management fees and extra costs (BTL mortgage rates, need for various certificates, covering voids, landlord insurance, paying estate agents to obtain tenants and probably many more I haven’t thought of may well eat up the difference between your mortgage + bills and the rent. You could end up living in a house you don’t like for at best a few thousand pounds a year extra cash and at worst, nothing extra.

I would obviously not turn down that sort of money if I was offered it but it’s not ‘set for life’ money by any stretch of the imagination. Has your husband actually worked out the figures? If not, you need to do that first.

Add in the risk that if your husband loses his job, you will find yourselves homeless. It’s easy to say it’s a safe job. I knew someone with a ‘job for life’, doing really well, people would always want the product sold etc. He worked in a high end independent travel agent. It didn’t survive COVID. Life happens. Companies get taken over, people get sick and can’t work.

Look into the tax implications of being a landlord, you'd need an accountant.
The mortgage: you’d have to approach your mortgage lender about changing your mortgage to a buy to let. Would your five year fixed rate still stand if it changed to BTL.
Landlords are responsible for the safety of their tenants, Gas Safety checks, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, electrical safety checks.
If he intends to try to do it on the quiet and just let to a mate for e.g and anything goes wrong and a tenant dies as a result of not having these safety checks done he and you, if you’re on the mortgage too, could face serious consequences.
Also how does he think it’s a free pension? When you’re both of retirement age you’d be moving back in surely. The only way a rented house could be considered a free pension is if it was sold.

I would agree to it on certain conditions. 1. You can decorate house how you want. 2. You will rent your house on fixed term contract. 3. Only until you reach a certain amount in savings eg £20k. I would think a few minutes walk to school would be better than a drive, even a small drive. You will have more nursery fees to come. The £20k would help you pay for your DC to go to uni. Not entirely but if invested would go some way to helping them out. I would always put DC future first.

I would do it but then I am one of those glass half full types who loves a challenge and loves having projects and something to look forward to

Tax! I forgot tax. Pay whatever percentage of the rent to the government as well to reduce your profit further.

I think I’d be keen to save the money to be honest! But my house is an s hole at the no so can’t relate.

I’d rather retire early and enjoy time doing what I want than working just to live in a house.

but there is more than one way of skinning a rabbit

why don’t you come up with a plan to invest in your retirement the same dish, without moving?

You would need to consider any cost involved in changing your mortgage to let them know you are renting it out.

Tax implications- work rental may be a benefit in kind. BTL and renting mortgages are not generous to high rate tax payers
You will need a BTL- do you have enough equity?

Example BTL mortgage is £638- rental in £2000 a month and that just met the affordability for 1 high rate tax paper an 1 not. They use 10 months rental income

I’d put real numbers to it, but my gut feel on reading is that I’d do.
You said it’s half your mortgage and it includes bills? So that’s hundreds.

You’ve got none of the worries of a bad decision, because you can give notice and change your mind in a relatively short period of time.
It’s foolish to be in a position where you have no savings but are pissing £300 away on a car.
Sounds like a potentially good move to correct that mistake.

We've had experience of renting our former home out over a period of around 9 years and in that time there was only one nice tenant and one who was clean but had lots of issues with social services which caused the neighbours trouble.

Also my dad is a private landlord with at one point around 30 houses between him and his wife. I briefly worked for them managing the tenancies and believe me it is rare to get a good tenant, even the ones you think will be good rarely come without problems. He's constantly having issues with the houses or tenants and I truly don't think it's worth the hassle. He could write a book on the things that have happened.

There is no way on earth that I would rent out our own home after seeing what can happen. It was the happiest day of my life when we sold our former home and were no longer landlords.

Ignore duplicate- I tried to post as the site crashed and didnt realise it had,