Empty house - what do I need to do?

[EyeDrops]

Hi all,

I am totally clueless and need your help please! DH and I own our house, but have recently moved out into an occupational residence (comes with his job) and so it's empty. We hope to rent it out, when we get things sorted.

What do I need to do regarding our owned property being empty? I know I need to tell the council & mortgage company, is there anything or anyone else?

Any advice gratefully received. Thank you!

I think insurance needs to be notified as I'm sure most policies only cover a max 30 days when not inhabited.

You will need a specific empty house insurance policy. We needed this when we moved before we sold our last house.

Yes, insurance def needs to know. Apply for permission to let as this can take some time. Set heating to low to avoid frozen winter pipes. Bills need to stay in your name until you rent it out. Cut off phone and broadband lines?

You still need to pay the council tax every month if it's empty. I was reading in the news, some councils charge double council tax !. If you want to rent it out you can yourself or via agents. You will need to declare income to HMRC and may need to pay tax, self assessment form. You will need gas safety certificate, if you have gas

Double council tax thing is Scotland only, as far as I'm aware - you've got a 2-year grace period and it suspends if the house is for sale or rent. Insurance company definitely and if you've got your utilities on direct debit, it might be worth taking readings now and giving them a call, they'll probably be happy to lower the monthly payment if you're not living there.

Don't forget to transfer your TV licence and register your old address as uninhabited on the TV licensing website, otherwise they'll start sending you annoying letters with dire threats of what will happen if you don't buy one.

Royal Mail post forward service to new address

You can't usually insure contents on an empty property policy, so remove anything of value. I think our insurance company gave us 90 days when we moved out and hadn't sold our old house, but there were conditions attached like heating and water remain switched on to a certain minimum temperature and someone checks the property every day (we moved nearby so we could do this easily). After 90 days we had to get empty property insurance, and most regular companies don't offer this, so you'll probably have to go to a specialist insurer (which you'll need to do for landlord insurance too).

Our council only lets a empty house have regular council tax for a year then it's at 150% so obviously you need to check out your particular council