Implications of letting my own house and renting another for myself.

[katicomps]

I would like to know what the implications of letting my own property out while I rent another for myself.

I own a property in Area A, it's the only property I own, but I let it out to a family.

I've been living with a partner in their house. We're probably about to split up.

I want to move to Area B.
I could evict and then sell, but that's a lengthy and expensive process. Not to mention, stressful for everyone involved.

I could find a rental property in area B for around what I charge in rent for mine and break even on that score, but obviously I pay tax on my rental earnings (I should mention here that I have no mortgage)
But even paying full whack on tax is cheaper than the £10k-ish it would be to sell.
And I could move immediately if I found something to rent versus 6 month's minimum to evict/sell.

I need someone with knowledge to point out what I'm missing and how it's going to trip me up.

Hopeful bump.

We moved country and rented for a year (to see if we would settle), letting out our old house. I can’t see what you are missing - covered tax, no mortgage, you may have to pay capital gains tax if you sell your house unless you go back to live in for a year or so - but that would be the case anyway.

You’re not missing anything.

We rented out our first flat that we owned to tenants, and moved into a rented house ourselves when I got pregnant. We needed more space, we couldn’t buy bigger at that time.

The only consideration is becoming a tenant again with everything that brings like possibility of LL selling/not renewing contract/rent going up. But if you want to live in Area B, I’d do it. You can always decide to sell your property in Area A at any later point if things change.

If it's a plan to rent short-term then it might work, otherwise you'll be paying tax and then paying the costs of selling and buying property anyway. How far away is the new area, do you need to change job to relocate? Would owning a property in another area cause any issues if you ever need to claim benefits for any reason?

It wouldn't take six months to give tenants notice, but if the property isn't in the area you want to live in you wouldn't be doing that anyway?

The areas are about a 15min drive apart so I would not have to change jobs. It seems so little distance but Area b is just a better fit for many areas of my life.

Yes, if my tenant ever gave notice then I might sell it then. If my potential LL gave me notice then id probably have to evict them, it's probably a "cross that bridge when we come to it" type of scenario as to what circumstances I'm in at the time.