My husband wrote this and I said I would post here as I'm sure there would be some people with helpful experiences to share. Thanks so much if you are able to help.
Finance-y:
More context & less finance-y bits at the bottom. Questions in quote-blocks for ease of reading.
Has anyone got any experience with Consent to Let?
Upsides & downsides etc...
We are moving to a brand new area and feel it's a bit risky to sell our existing house and buy a new one without getting to know the new area first. Our mortgage provider seems ok in principle to consent to let out our existing house, which would mean we could rent a house in the new area as a way to really settle on which town & area is the right one for us. In addition we might have longer to actually a new house that really suits us in the long term.
I've heard there are limts on how long a mortgage provider will consent to let.
What's been your experience on the process?
After your consent to let expires, it seems we have a couple of options for moving forward: Selling the old house and buying a new one or - if our situation allows it (which it juuuust about might) - converting our old mortgage into a permanent let.
How does stamp duty work if you convert a house you no longer live in to a to-let property, before you've bought your new house? At no point are you actually buying a "second home"
If we have to sell the old house to buy a new one, I would love to hear about people's experience with mortgage porting:
What are the fees and pitfalls about porting your mortgage? Are mortgage providers still supporting mortgage ports?
Context:
Through a combination of growing children, lack of family options where we live & more liberal working from home policy from my job, my wife and I are considering moving our family to a completely new area.
This may sound extreme, but it's been a long time in the making. Short story is that 6 years ago, we moved from the Midlands to the South Downs (in the South East) as a way to get closer to a new London job. While the town we live in is fine, we find the area overall a desert for family options. We are in the unique position of having both teenagers and toddlers in the house. I won't bore you with the details and I can totally believe why other families find the South Downs absolutely perfect - but it's not for us, we have concluded after 6 years of really trying to make it for us.
So, we are considering moving to somewhere west of Oxford, combining a tolerable commute to London with access to shopping & culture of Oxford, as well as access to the Cotswold and being closer to our old friends up in the Midlands.