Renting out your own home as a forces family

[vintageteacups]

Hi,

Anyone know if you have to tell your mortgage company that you are renting out your only home?

We are looking at remortgaging and will be renting it out once we move back into a qusrter next year.

We told our current lenders we were going to rent it out and they checked and said it was fine but if we remortgaged and then didn't tell them, would that matter?

I know that forces families can often rent out without having to have abuy-to-let mortgage if it's their sole property and they live in quarters but not sure if there are companies who don't care if you rent it out?

Yes you must, and take out appropriate insurance.

My friend and her hubby (who is in the RAF) have done this, they have a house in the North but he is based down south, and will be until he musters out in 2012. So they have rented their house out (they are planning to return to it next year as their DS will be starting school and all their families are nearby), I think through Halifax lettings.

They have been very lucky, a lovely older couple have been renting their house out and they have had very few problems.

Oh they live in MQ currently.
Best thing to do is to chat to your mortgage company and see what they say, but theirs was insistent that it had to buy to let. They have been renting it out since 2008 I think?

Thanks Kara - thought that would be the case.
Our current mortgage is with the halifax.

When we had our first property, that we rented out, we didn't have a buy to let mortgage. Nationwide knew right from the outset that we wouldn't ever live in it. It was purely for investment purposes to get us 'on the ladder'. We remortgaged with them a couple of times and still had no problems with it being rented out and us never living there.

Nationwide and Halifax are both ususally OK about forces families renting out their property without having to take out a buy to let mortgage.

You will need to tell your mortgage provider and when you remortgage you may find your options are a bit limited if you don't want to take out a buy to let mortgage because few providers understand forces circumstances. It is one time when a good mortgage advisor would be worth their fee.
Our mortgage is with RBS and we've had no problems, we had some difficulties arranging one with Nationwide although I can't remember why.

Between us DH and I have rented out 4 properties while being in the forces and we've never had a problem with the mortgage company.

I let mine out, and remortgaged with C&G in late 2006 after we had started letting. They had no problem with it, and didn't require the rent to cover the mortgage.

Halifax can be buggers with Forces, our ex next door neighbours had real problems with them.

I can recommend a good place to get l/l insurance for Forces if you need it. Do NOT go with Letsure - I changed when my premium doubled and I'd never claimed anything...they changed underwriter and prices rocketed.

We've never had a problem. I'd recommend you tell them upfront that you are a military family, this is your sole property, but that when the Crown posts you away you need to let it out (rather than leave it empty). This is a well-trodden track (that pre-dates buy-to-let). For peace of mind, get their agreement in principle at the outset and then it's easy to inform them when you act on this agreement.

Sorry - brain freeze -meant to say "get their agreement in principle in writing".

we chatted last night onimolap and yes, we are going to make sure before taking it out that they will let us rent it out for the 2 years.
We have found a First Direct mortgage that has a really low application fee of £99 and interest rate of 3.89

Yes, you must get 'consent to let' and change your buildings insurance.