Renting out our house?

[SnailWhaleTail]

Hello,

We have a bit of a strange situation going on which I only found out about last night.

DH is away with work (Forces) he left in June and was due to be back in November; he has now been informed that he'll be doing October until May in Florida too. Obviously this is nearly a year away from home with us only seeing him for a max of about 5 weeks. This isn't acceptable to me as we have children of 5 and 3yrs and it is just too long.

The forces will not pay to move us to his short 6 month post (from Oct) in the USA but I think we could do it privately if we rented out our house. So, my property related question is, should we rent the house out furnished? Is it best to go through an agency? How best to organise the whole thing for a complete novice?

Any advice at all would be very welcome!

If it is your family home and you plan to return go unfurnished or part furnished (basic large items). There are regulations about fire safety and inspections for soft furnishings and appliances you leave. However to get a family prepared to move in for just 6 months might be hard. As you wontl be resident you'd best have an agency , unless you have trusted relatives or friends locally prepared to handle it(deposit, inventory, checks, repairs etc) and that can cost up to 15% of gross rental income. Ask a couple of agencies(ARLA registered or similar) and they should have info packs on what is required and give you an evaluation, or contact the council.

Hi snail,

I rented out my house when I moved in with DP. Chat to agencies but I was quite surprised to find that furnished only means beds, wardrobes, dining room table and chairs, sofa, curtains, cooker and white goods. YOu dont provide kettle, toaster, microwave, dishwasher, hoover, pots and pans etc. Unfurnished means a totally empty house.

I didnt go with an agency but I only live a 10 minute drive away and we rent to friends of friends so its pretty informal. If you're abroad and renting to strangers I would probably go with an agency so they can deal with any problems. You need to get a gas landlords certificate and an energy performance certificate before you rent out and make sure all your sofas have fire labels.

hope this helps.

Forgot to say - our agency said we didnt require an electrics certficte but we did have a duty of care re the electrics. We got a friend who is an electrician to give everything a quick look over which they said was fine but he didnt issue a certificate or anything, it was just to put our mind at rest.

You also need to change your house insurance to rental insurance. We got the agency's broker to do this and they got a broker only deal which worked out cheaper than our usual house insurance!

You will need to check with your mortgage company aswell.

Hello,
I would prefer to rent it unfurnished and not worry about my stuff so would be happy to put it into storage, so that's ok. Re mortgage, our lenders have let us stay on residential in the past as it is a service move so will hopefully do that again.

I suppose we could rent it out for a year and find alternative accom on our return for a few months.

Thanks all

If it's furnished you can claim 10%pa 'wear and tear' against tax - I'd go part-furnished

I would check how much of his time in Florida will actually be spent there, as it could be that that is his base but he may spend time at sea / travelling; so you need to consider what you would actually achieve by moving except a load of stress.

Secondly, if you are only going to rent your house for 6 months, you may find it difficult; we are abroad with the RN, and our tenants have now been in situ for 3 years. I think it is hard to rent it just for 6 months, and what if you don't get anyone to rent it whilst you are away, but then they want it for 6 months, and you are due back in 2 months. You then have to sort out MQs, or are up shit creek if you want to go home, and it is unfair on the tenants.

You could look on it as a 12 month deployment at sea, when you wouldn't see him, and stay put, with trips out to the US for hols.

Scary, thanks for the advice; it is a shore job so he will be there the majority of the time and 12 months is just too long for a 3 yr old not to see a parent, we'd only have our 2 week r and r holiday in Aug, a week in oct and 2 weeks at Xmas. I just have the stories my mil tells me on my mind, she was a Navy brat and remembers coming home one day to see a man sitting in the kitchen and asking her mum 'who is that funny man and when is he leaving', it was her father back after a long deployment!

Fortuitously my friend would like to rent our house whilst we're away and if necessary we'll move to SFA when we get back. If going with DH is not possible then I think I'll still rent it to my friend and move 'home' for a year.

Does anyone know the best way of finding a good rental contract without going through an agent?

Thanks!

I'm a Navy brat too, and have been married to it for 24 years, hence the make sure he will be there advice, as I have known things change rapidly.

I would go through an agent - if you are near Tavistock, I can recommend the agency I use; they are fab, and I have no worries about the house. You will be a long way away, so if you have an agency things will be fixed when they need to be and all the legalities sorted out. Nothing worse that a friendship breaking because you didn't tie up the legalities of letting your home.

If you do rent and go, then you need to fill in a non-resident landlord form which means the Revenue approve you getting your rent gross, not taxed, and you just fill in a return every year. It works well for us as we have to do one anyway, and we make a paper loss each year, so do not pay any tax on the rent at all.