Is this a bit ott for renting?

[atasteofhoneyy]

We are moving abroad and putting the house up for rent. It’s a 4 bed terrace. We live in inner London and it’s likely we’ll get a group of young professional housemates rather than a family.

We’ve just got a fireproofing guy to come and check the house to make it renter compliant. He has told us we need to plasterboard a load of walls/ under the stairs. Plasterboard the ceiling. Emergency lights to replace our light fittings. He’s charging £3.5k just to come and install fire alarms.

I understand we have to have fire doors and fire alarms/ PAC testing. Emergency exit signs fine. But the plasterboard, drilling through the living room wall to install a special fire alarm (we already have Nest protect on each floor), putting in emergency lights, feels a bit over the top and a bit ‘HMO’.

AIBU? Whenever we’ve rented in the past we’ve not had these kinds of set ups.

Also we already have three fire alarms, wired up, over three floors. They want to install three more.

That makes sense. Tbf the places I rented the LLs didn't usually allow extra people (plenty of tenants did it but it was unofficial) and most were 3 or 4 bed houses so wouldn't have been on the radar for licencing.

Technically a bedsit is where you rent a room and share a kitchen and bathroom, which is what you're suggesting.
In the past it was more common for a group of people to come together to rent one property, on one contract (you could even buddy up with people to do this on sites like spare room) but the cost of rentals and the financial risk it would pose, not to mind the income one person would need to pass the credit check, make that impossible now.

family is my preferred choice - its already a family home and we decorated it all nicely etc.
However we are the only family in the area, all the other houses on this street are flat conversions or house shares.
When we bought it 3 years ago it was a house share. We added fire doors and alarms for ourselves.

A disabled mother who shares with her daughter.

Always get more than 1 quote anyway.

If you are going to be a landlord, you need to understand the rules yourself, not rely on anyone else for it. That's how "accidental landlords" end up in court having to repay months of rent back to their tenants.

If you want HMO money, it doesn’t come easy!
You will also have to pay the bills (gas water elec) as this will be included in the rent. I would avoid if you don’t want the hassle and expense

If you rent to 3 unrelated people it's going to be an HMO. You will need a license and you must have fire doors and smoke alarms wired into electrics and in every room. Those are common HMO rules. It's easier to rent to a family.

What makes you think that it would be better just because they are a family? I am sorry you had one bad experience but I conversely lived next door to a nightmare family (regular drug, loud music/phone conversations in the garden whilst chain smoking and drinking ALL day every day etc) when I was a young professional, living with my fellow young professionals in an area of London popular with families and professionals. We kept in touch with a lot of our neighbours when we moved on, but not the family.

As I have already said, our very recent similar experience of renting out our family home in London due to a move abroad did not result in a "normal" family living in it, as they (unfortunately) either can't afford it or are looking to buy as monthly mortgage payments are much lower than rent payments. We had zero interest from families despite being in a very sought after family friendly area, aside from one family who wanted it for a few months whilst they were having their loft done and we wanted a longer term tenant. From what the OP has said, it sounds like renting to young professionals may be a good plan and yes, that will likely involve meeting HMO requirements (borough dependent) but they are no more likely to wreck the place than any other group of renters. She just needs to ensure that both the managing agent and her/her family are completely upto date with the forever changing legislation in their particular borough AND has appropriate landlord insurance to cover things going wrong.

You think wrong its an HMO.

Is there a reason you aren’t selling it? Sounds like something between a long term and a forever move so managing this from overseas will be a long term headache.

It’s up to you whether you rent to a family, price it correctly and it’s more likely to get tenants, you may even get ling term family.

HMO will surely be a lot of work in comparison to an HMO, with people constantly moving in and out

Can’t speak for rUK but in Scotland the HMO regs were brought in as a response to a fatality in a basement flat.
An HMO is classed as “3 or more unrelated adults” sharing a property.
The research showed that people sharing with unrelated adults were less likely to help in the situation of needing to evacuate.
The requirements may seem stringent but ultimately they could save a life.

A good agent should advise you as to what regulations are required. And also check about HMO licensing (the agent should also tell you) as I rent out a two bedroom flat with one kitchen and one bathroom but the council decided five years ago that ALL rentals on that street needed an HMO license! Cost me £500 then and I now have to renew it at a cost of £742. They asked some weird questions about the layout ‘standing in the street looking at your property, where is the living room in relation to XYZ’. They did not ask about emergency lighting, though when the freehold was sold it was suddenly discovered that the emergency lighting in the communal areas needed updating, which cost a few hundred, certainly not thousands (this was two years ago). And weirdly we had fire extinguishers but that had to be removed as they could ‘be misused’. Anyway that was the freeholders responsibility in this case (though we of course had to pay for it), but it shows how the rules can seem arbitrary and counterproductive and expensive. But I would not trust this guy necessarily- there are plenty out there happy to unburden you of your money. When the HMO requirement came into force, my agent offered to put me in touch with someone who would file the application for me, of course for a fee. The application was a PITA but I did it myself.

I find this surprising. There are many families in London who are desperate to live somewhere/ anywhere, and a real shortage of larger (3 & 4-bed) homes in many boroughs. Which area have you been told is not considered 'family friendly'?!

Why not contact the local council and offer to rent it through them to a family (who are deemed homeless and would otherwise be stuck in temporary accommodation or forced to leave the area)?

Most of them offer guaranteed rent/ property management services/ no fees, because they are also desperate to find housing for people they have a legal obligation towards - eg Southwark's scheme https://www.southwark.gov.uk/housing/private-tenants-and-landlords/landlords/let-your-property-through-us

@Longtimelurkerfinallyposts there certainly are many families in London in need of housing, but the issue isn't the lack of homes, it's the lack of affordable homes, especially in relation to local housing allowance and/or wages.

I’m a Londoner - it does not cost £3500 to fit 3 fire alarms unless you ask a self-styled “fireproofing expert”.

So not an HMO, then.

I didn't say the issues was as simple as a 'lack' of homes though! London actually contains thousands of long-term empties, including those bought as'investment properties' then deliberately left empty by overseas owners.

What I said was that there were lots of families desperate to find homes (espeially homes large enough for families with multiple children) that they could rent, and suggested a way that the OP could probably easily & reliably rent out her house at the same time as benefitting one of those families.... win win...

What exactly are you disagreeing with?! Or what is your point?

I believe that it should be possible for her to rent it out at an affordable price, and still cover her mortgage payments while she's abroad. But let's wait and see if she comes back to the thread and tells us which allegedly-non-family-friendly area it's in!

I'm not sure why that warranted such a snippy response. You suggested renting via the council, which would mean renting it at a rate that is comparable to what would be paid by LHA. Generally in London that would mean being in the cheapest 5% of properties. It's not unreasonable to think that it would be unusual for the OP to have a property that would fit that, especially if it's been done up as a nice family home. It's one thing dropping the price a little to get the right tenants, but the difference between market rent and what the OP could get via a council scheme is likely to be pretty significant, unless she's in a very unusually cheap area.

Presumably because it makes zero financial sense to sell. When they do move back, just to buy that same house again, they'd likely be paying 6 figures in stamp duty alone before any other costs are added. If they sell, where are they going to put the proceeds? ISAs and most savings accounts are not open to non UK residents, and you also can't add to your pension in the same way. They are also likely to be earning significantly more in their ex pat role anyway and potentially do not have has high overheads as in London, so adding even more "excess" money into the pot won't help on a day to day basis. Our package includes all housing and car costs aside from internet and petrol/car cleaning, plus schooling which is standard in our field of work. Also, just because the plan is to be away for a long time it doesnt mean that will happen and they could be recalled at any moment, or decide they dont like it. It is much easier to move back if you have kept your house than if you have sold it, particularly when returning to the same area with children.

I can't think of any Brits here that sold their UK house because it makes zero financial sense to do so. I do however know a lot of people from other countries who sold. All of those with property in the UK either rent it out or leave it empty (without a lot of day to day furniture, as that is all here) to use when they are back, which is representative of the "downside" of the UK housing market for families moving temporarily abroad for work reasons.

You are wrong. There are massive fines for renting a house to 3 unrelated people without HMO license and all HMO rules eg fire doors and snake alarms run from electric with battery back up.

So update:
we have decided to not go down the HMO route, it’s too much - the work comes to about 30k and ruins the house. Our LA also doesn’t allow HMO licence holders to live outside the UK.
This means we will be renting the property out to a family, for less than the cost of the mortgage (until we are on interest free in two years).

Remember if your tenants stop paying rent and refuse to leave, then it could take you months, if not years, to get them out.

We had 2 rental properties and have recently sold them because of the new Renters Rights bill. It just isn't worth it for small landlords. It is not only the cost of removing tenants, it is also the stress if they destroy your property.

If you are not living in the area where the house is who is going to look after it for you? If you are going to go through a managed letting agency then get them to come round and help you set up a list of actions you need to take. They might even take some actions on for you.