Be Excellent To Each Other

The trouble with living over the brush is that I'm always spending money out. Anyways, being fortunate enough, now, to be in a position to raise a mortgage, some choices have to be made*. This would be a single mortgage, as my employment is still on short term contracts that even I wouldn't consider lending against.

The options are as follows:

1) Keep the Oxfordshire Mansion empty and continue renting.
2) Sell the Oxfordshire Mansion, bank the money and continue renting.
3) Sell the Oxfordshire Mansion, buy somewhere and stay there forever.
4) Sell the Oxfordshire Mansion, buy somewhere and wait until my situation is clearer, then sell it and buy somewhere bigger.

I suspect that option 4 makes the most sense, as I'd rather pay be paying the bank back monies than landlord. I'd feel it would be going somewhere. I thought it best to ask the you guys, as there might be something I'm missing.


*The cost of redecorating the house I've decided is a "cost of moving" and I don't have the time to get it done as I have such few holidays at present.

What is the difference between Oxford interest cost and rental income? Facts, Malia, facts. Be better.

I looked into that. In short, I ruled renting it out as a bad deal (see edit) due to having to re mortgage it, get tenants and fix stuff. It seemed also to be a lot of effort to be almost cash neutral. And we need the equity.

EDIT: Brief checking suggests that a comparable property rents for about £775. Letting agents fees of about 10% would drop income to £700. A mortgage would be about 5%, according to a brief google, so that's £600 taken from that. Insurance probably accounts for £20 a month leaving £20 quid a week income, to pay for stuff that breaks and things. At present, it costs c£300 a month (mortgage, council tax and misc) to sit empty.

Kern just texted me reminding me that it's probably best to sell it before the new estates are built in the area.

You don't have to.

So this is basically that big "renting v paying a mortgage" debate we've had a few times, isn't it?

My mortgage says I can't rent it out.

It's more "Where should MaliA keep his capital".

Aye, I wouldn't play that game. I've seen a client threatened with fraud charges quite recently.

Yeah, after doing more maths, selling Bicester and getting a house like the one we're in at the moment is doable and would actually save us money.

Have you called your provider? They will most likely give you consent to lease for 3 years, and let you stay on your current mortgage.

So does mine, but rather than pay them £500 a year for fuck all I've just forwarded my mail to my girlfriend's house and rented it out anyway. It's not like they'll ever come round to check and it's not like I'd be paying them money for anything so they can fuck right off.

I did actually initially enquire about doing it legit, but they wanted me to 'apply for permission' to rent it out which included showing them the lease I was going to use. Given that I couldn't sign up with a letting agent until they'd given me permission, and a letting agent wouldn't show me a lease until I'd signed up with them, the whole thing was ludicrous and impossible. Also, they'd only give permission for a year at a time so every year I'd need to apply again (and pay another £500 of course!) which is really difficult to juggle when you've got a sitting tenant who wants to extend the lease.

The money they're charging is literally for nothing but I'd probably have ended up giving them it if they hadn't made the whole thing so awkward and difficult and, in the end, it was that attitude that's done them out of their free annual charge so I've got no sympathy.

As a good Marxist, I can only recommend that you redistribute it. Preferably in my direction.

I'm with Alliance and Leicester and they charge 90 quid a year for permission to rent the flat out. Don't know if it is different because we are overseas, or because we were lucky to have taken out the mortgage with a pretty good deposit. They seemed more than happy to let us rent it though, it was quite simple.

I can't say I enjoy being a landlord though, even if I have a really really good tenant. If margins were really thin (or I wanted to live in the UK and needed the flat, or the deposit) I simply wouldn't bother.



I heard somewhere that mortgage companies could be alerted if the names used on utility accounts for the property are changed frequently (indicating tenant turnover). I don't know if this is true, and am now questioning if utility providers would or could even give that sort of info to mortgage companies.

I think I might stick the house on teh market as it is for a month and see what happens. If any offer is received that is reasonable, sell it. Otherwise, I'll pop back and forth and do little bits here and there.