What should we do with the house

[ButterMelonCauliflower]

We're in the early stages of planning a possible move to New York, probably for a couple of years, and I can't work out what we'd do with the house in the UK.
We don't want to sell it. We can't rent it out unless we change mortgages and we don't want to lose our current mortgage as it's very cheap, and portable if we ever do want to sell.
So is our only option to leave the house standing empty? Can you get a house sitter for 2 years?!
Sorry if this is a very basic question, as I say, very early stages of planning...

Have you asked your bank if they will give you permission to let? That would allow you to rent the house for a couple of years on your current mortgage as long as you intend to return to live in it.

If it's a work transfer there is a good chance the bank will be ok with you renting your home. If you have to remortgage the additional cost should be added to the costs you are incurring to relocate and your employer(s) should be reimbursing this expense.

Thanks, I might give them a call and see what they say. It might help us make up our minds as to whether we go

Ask the bank, they may well let you rent, either permanently or for a specified period on your current mortgage.
You will also have issues with leaving the house empty for that period of time. Insurance will be difficult, and the mortgage company may object!

We managed to be fortunate enough to scrape enough money together to pay off the mortgage before we left, and are restocking our savings, pension etc now were abroad. Not common tho, I shouldn't think.

you certainly shouldn't leave it empty!

house sitters are a possible if you don't want to rent it. Either will be a fair bit of hassle.

I suspect your mortgage won't let you leave it empty anyway. if it's a fairly standard family home for the area then letting it shouldn't be a problem, vet your letting agent carefully and make sure you like them as they will be your friend and a good one doesn't want the hassle of bad tenants any more than you do.

Please work out tax before deciding anything! The laws have changed and you will get heavily taxed on rent.

Check with your insurance company too. There will be a clause that invalidates your insurance if the house is left empty for more than a certain amount of time (normally 30 or 60 days).

In our case our house wasn't in a fit state to rent (and given that we for 2 weeks warning there wasn't time to get it into a fit state). My insurer increased our insurance premium about 40% but agreed to keep us covered on the the condition that certain things of value were removed from the property (My DM has given them a home) and that someone visited at least once a week (My MIL is a star!)

You should be able to rent your house out, sometimes your mortgage lender charges you slightly higher interest.
We have been abroad for nearly 3 years, we just fill our tax returns in each year, it's all been pretty problem free.
I also know a few people who have left their house empty, with family checking regularly, this is good if you plan on returning for holidays to the uk. But as someone else has mentioned, has insurance implications.

We have consent to let on our house, according to our lender the longest they can do this for is 2hrs before converting to a BTL mortgage.
Yes, you can no longer offset mortgage interest as an expense for tax ourposes but we only have a modest mortgage anyway so it won't affect us too much. That change will have a much bigger impact on BTL landlords, possibly with high LTVs and multiple properties. We only have one house and it was more important to us to keep something in the UK housing market that meant we weren't left behind if prices change.