Do I have to have a BTL mortgage if its my sole property?

[JooLoo]

We are overseas and when we rented our house out we stayed with current mortgage and got Consent to Let. We are now looking to sell and then buy a bigger place. We will rent it out for between 1-5 years but it will be our sole property and we intend to live in it when we return. I'm being told that we have to get a BTL mortgage which is more expensive. HAs anybody done better? (I am paid in UK as British Crown Servant and we are only looking for 40% LTV ratio if any of that helps?!)

Because you're initially going to be letting the property it's only reasonable that the mortgage lenders consider this on a BTL basis. Yes, this will make the interest rate higher so I'd suggest looking at the shorter-term mortgage rates rather than committing to a particular "product" for 5 years. That way, if you return in (say) 3 years time you can move on to a cheaper homeowner rate much sooner.

If you were to keep your current house and the fixed/tracker rate on that is expiring it may be cheaper to stick with the lender's standard variable rate.