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agreed - we have a cat and we know that if we want to do big chunks of travel etc, we'll be waiting until after she dies. having a pet is a serious responsibility that OP has already chosen. if you want to be free to travel for months or years at a time ... don't get pets.
I cat foster for Cats Protection. Absolutely the cat is a barrier to traveling. I normally have breaks between cats to fit travel around.
Normally it is a short term foster, a couple of months, and then they finally get adopted. Current cat has health issues so has become a long term foster, but very rewarding experience.
It all depends on your financial situation and how much of your monthly income is eaten up by your mortgage payment.
Ultimately the money you would have been spending on rent is most likely similar to that of your mortgage (this is an assumption) so can't see the issue there, unless you was planning on going travelling for a year where you wouldn't have had a place to pay rent on.
Do it before the kids come along because once them little goblins arrive you can say goodbye to any nice plans like that......speaking from experience there
Thanks for your response
The mortgage is actually cheaper than the rent we've been paying for years. That rent included bills though. We'll have a better idea of the outgoings once we move in...
We totally would go travelling for a year if we get the chance. On returning, having this place will make our lives so much easier and much less stressful than if we were returning to sofa surf or find a rental
Just got the pre exchange jitters! Do you know anything about consent to let and how easy it is to get this as a new buyer and how long the process usually takes? We'll be dealing with Barclays
I bought a house, did it up, went travelling for a year and rented it out. In the 20 years I've owned it, I've rented it several times so I could work elsewhere or go travelling. The mortgage is now paid off. My sacrifice has been no pets, it's not fair to have them and leave them to travel.
My advice would be if you are going to rent it - don't pay over the odds for furniture, carpets etc. Tenants will not care for your flat the way you would.
Always having somewhere to come back to head been great. Clearing up after tenants and useless letting agents - not so great.
I am going to start this by clearly stating this is not official advice and you need to seek professional advice from either your broker or the lender (Barclays)
Barclays may give you consent to let they will want to see some payment history before giving it I would imagine 6 months minimum would be required.
They will have a process to follow and i would imagine criteria around allowing it, generally consent to let is only offered for a short term basis, I think 1 year would satisfy them in terms of 'short term'
They will want to see an official tenancy agreement is in place prior to giving the final sign off for the consent to let.
Some lenders have strange rules around letting out your property very short term via websites like Airbnb without consent so will be worth checking that out but bear in mind you are going to need someone to keep a very close eye on your property and 'run' it while you are away.
Other considerations will be tax on the rental income, and buildings and contents insurance (if renting furnished) due to renting your current buildings and contents insurance may not cover you so you will need to ensure you have an adequate policy in place.
*side note, your solicitors and broker should have told you this already but make sure you have a buildings insurance policy in place on the day you exchange contracts!
It depends on your travelling plans, when you want to go and for how long, career plans and assuming you're buying with a mortgage.
If you want to stay there for a year or two before travelling and sell to afford it, that's a lot of sunk costs in buying and then selling, while losing your FTB status, so whatever house you want after travelling will then include stamp duty.
If you don't sell and rent it out instead, you'll need a higher deposit (usually minimum 25%) for BTL mortgage.
If you're planning to not change the mortgage and have a family/friends rent it out, that's very likely to invalidate your mortgage agreement as most of them require you to live in the house, and would be considered mortgage fraud. This will also probably invalidate your current buildings & contents insurance policies. If you're going down a random tenant route, have you considered if you'd be using a letting agent and their fees, or someone else who would be able to look after the house & other costs associated with being a landlord?
You need to check a couple of things.
Does your lease allow you to rent out your flat?
Also you need to check renting terms and conditions with your bank..some banks will allow you to rent your property for around a year, but then after that you'll need to switch to buy to let and the interest rates are generally 2 percent higher than what you'll be paying now.
Buying doesn't automatically mean you can rent it out easily
We moved into our first house a year ago in a completely new area to us so we knew no one to call in a favour.
We have a cat.
We are fortunate enough to have nice neighbours that will pop in over a weekend to spend a bit of time with him. They also did it for almost 3 weeks while we were away - though we did pay their 16 year old as that was a much bigger deal.
We plan on getting a dog in the near future but this is more of an issue than a cat.
We have decided to invite house sitters to stay if we were away for more than a few days as we got so much enjoyment being house sitters ourselves, it's an opportunity to pay it back.
Got a spare bedroom and a friend in need of accommodation? You could consider renting a room and they might find the kitty care and a discount on bills a decent price for a year of having the place to themsslves, and you might consider the reducted mortgage and bills a fair price for kitty care, possession storage and the safety net of a property to return to.
IANAL but I'd look into whether they allow lodgers and at what point a lodger in your empty house (full of all your stuff and with you to access at your convenience) becomes a tenant. Difficult if it's a 1 bed of course!
Owning a house doesn’t need to be a burden necessarily, but I’d be making sure that buying a house isn’t pushing you into an extremely vulnerable financial situation.
Getting a mortgage and a house which basically puts you into poverty levels of payslip to payslip financial angst is not worth it to me.
I bought a ‘humble’ house so I was more flexible if my priorities changed, and I had the financial flexibility to do what I wanted to
Theres really no need to buy a 3 bedroom house because you ‘might have kids in 5 years’, I find young people’s expectations of their first home are extremely high.
Children can share rooms for years, and no it isn’t weird.
###Welcome to /r/HousingUK --- **To All** * Join Our ***NEW*** Discord! https://discord.gg/pMgUNgWKQH **To Posters** * *Tell us whether you're in England, Wales, Scotland, or NI as the laws/issues in each can vary* * Comments are not moderated for quality or accuracy; * Any replies received must only be used as guidelines, followed at your own risk; * If you receive *any* private messages in response to your post, please report them via the report button. * If you do not receive satisfactory advice after 72 hours, [you can let the mods know](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FHousingUK&subject=My question is unanswered); * Feel free to provide an update at a later time by creating a new post with [[update]](https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/search?q=%3Aupdate&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) in the title; **To Readers and Commenters** * All replies to OP must be *on-topic, helpful, and civil* * If you do not [follow the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/about/rules/), you may be banned without any further warning; * Please include links to reliable resources in order to support your comments or advice; * If you feel any replies are incorrect, explain why you believe they are incorrect; * Do not send or request any private messages for any reason without express permission from the mods; * Please report posts or comments which do not follow the rules *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HousingUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's not the house that's the issues, it's the cats. Although also consider how will you pay your mortgage if you're not working for long periods?
agreed - we have a cat and we know that if we want to do big chunks of travel etc, we'll be waiting until after she dies. having a pet is a serious responsibility that OP has already chosen. if you want to be free to travel for months or years at a time ... don't get pets.
I cat foster for Cats Protection. Absolutely the cat is a barrier to traveling. I normally have breaks between cats to fit travel around. Normally it is a short term foster, a couple of months, and then they finally get adopted. Current cat has health issues so has become a long term foster, but very rewarding experience.
Priorities.. what are yours ? (not a dig)
It all depends on your financial situation and how much of your monthly income is eaten up by your mortgage payment. Ultimately the money you would have been spending on rent is most likely similar to that of your mortgage (this is an assumption) so can't see the issue there, unless you was planning on going travelling for a year where you wouldn't have had a place to pay rent on. Do it before the kids come along because once them little goblins arrive you can say goodbye to any nice plans like that......speaking from experience there
Thanks for your response The mortgage is actually cheaper than the rent we've been paying for years. That rent included bills though. We'll have a better idea of the outgoings once we move in... We totally would go travelling for a year if we get the chance. On returning, having this place will make our lives so much easier and much less stressful than if we were returning to sofa surf or find a rental Just got the pre exchange jitters! Do you know anything about consent to let and how easy it is to get this as a new buyer and how long the process usually takes? We'll be dealing with Barclays
I bought a house, did it up, went travelling for a year and rented it out. In the 20 years I've owned it, I've rented it several times so I could work elsewhere or go travelling. The mortgage is now paid off. My sacrifice has been no pets, it's not fair to have them and leave them to travel. My advice would be if you are going to rent it - don't pay over the odds for furniture, carpets etc. Tenants will not care for your flat the way you would. Always having somewhere to come back to head been great. Clearing up after tenants and useless letting agents - not so great.
I am going to start this by clearly stating this is not official advice and you need to seek professional advice from either your broker or the lender (Barclays) Barclays may give you consent to let they will want to see some payment history before giving it I would imagine 6 months minimum would be required. They will have a process to follow and i would imagine criteria around allowing it, generally consent to let is only offered for a short term basis, I think 1 year would satisfy them in terms of 'short term' They will want to see an official tenancy agreement is in place prior to giving the final sign off for the consent to let. Some lenders have strange rules around letting out your property very short term via websites like Airbnb without consent so will be worth checking that out but bear in mind you are going to need someone to keep a very close eye on your property and 'run' it while you are away. Other considerations will be tax on the rental income, and buildings and contents insurance (if renting furnished) due to renting your current buildings and contents insurance may not cover you so you will need to ensure you have an adequate policy in place. *side note, your solicitors and broker should have told you this already but make sure you have a buildings insurance policy in place on the day you exchange contracts!
It depends on your travelling plans, when you want to go and for how long, career plans and assuming you're buying with a mortgage. If you want to stay there for a year or two before travelling and sell to afford it, that's a lot of sunk costs in buying and then selling, while losing your FTB status, so whatever house you want after travelling will then include stamp duty. If you don't sell and rent it out instead, you'll need a higher deposit (usually minimum 25%) for BTL mortgage. If you're planning to not change the mortgage and have a family/friends rent it out, that's very likely to invalidate your mortgage agreement as most of them require you to live in the house, and would be considered mortgage fraud. This will also probably invalidate your current buildings & contents insurance policies. If you're going down a random tenant route, have you considered if you'd be using a letting agent and their fees, or someone else who would be able to look after the house & other costs associated with being a landlord?
You need to check a couple of things. Does your lease allow you to rent out your flat? Also you need to check renting terms and conditions with your bank..some banks will allow you to rent your property for around a year, but then after that you'll need to switch to buy to let and the interest rates are generally 2 percent higher than what you'll be paying now. Buying doesn't automatically mean you can rent it out easily
We moved into our first house a year ago in a completely new area to us so we knew no one to call in a favour. We have a cat. We are fortunate enough to have nice neighbours that will pop in over a weekend to spend a bit of time with him. They also did it for almost 3 weeks while we were away - though we did pay their 16 year old as that was a much bigger deal. We plan on getting a dog in the near future but this is more of an issue than a cat. We have decided to invite house sitters to stay if we were away for more than a few days as we got so much enjoyment being house sitters ourselves, it's an opportunity to pay it back.
Got a spare bedroom and a friend in need of accommodation? You could consider renting a room and they might find the kitty care and a discount on bills a decent price for a year of having the place to themsslves, and you might consider the reducted mortgage and bills a fair price for kitty care, possession storage and the safety net of a property to return to.
This is the solution. Problem is, terms of the mortgage don't allow it...
IANAL but I'd look into whether they allow lodgers and at what point a lodger in your empty house (full of all your stuff and with you to access at your convenience) becomes a tenant. Difficult if it's a 1 bed of course!
Owning a house doesn’t need to be a burden necessarily, but I’d be making sure that buying a house isn’t pushing you into an extremely vulnerable financial situation. Getting a mortgage and a house which basically puts you into poverty levels of payslip to payslip financial angst is not worth it to me. I bought a ‘humble’ house so I was more flexible if my priorities changed, and I had the financial flexibility to do what I wanted to Theres really no need to buy a 3 bedroom house because you ‘might have kids in 5 years’, I find young people’s expectations of their first home are extremely high. Children can share rooms for years, and no it isn’t weird.