any house rental experts??
 

Thinking of moving locally, but hate the thought of all that buy/sell/chain rubbish. So, I may look at renting my current home and take some equity as deposit on new......

pitfalls?
must do's & dont's
rental co or do yerself?
legislation I need to pay attention to?
best if furnished or un furnished?
insurance?

etc etc etc
any and all advice welcome :D

cheers

Make sure you have a proper contract.

Take rent by direct debit, saves you going to bank and finding out cheque has bounced 1 week later.

Your insurance co needs to know the property is rented out as does your mortgage company if you have one.

rental co or do yerself? I personally would do it your self if you have time, but make sure you take refs and possibly credit check tenants.

legislation I need to pay attention to? You need to get a landlords certificate for any gas boilers,cookers that are in the property.

best if furnished or un furnished? I think it is better for tax purposes if furnished but I prefere unfurnished without white goods, Less hassle if appliances go wrong.

pitfalls? Can be a pain in the arse time wise and financialy if you have to evict, generally dont expect tenants to look after your house furniture like you do.

hope this is of some help

Yes you get 10% of the rent as an expense (10% of rent less anything like rates, water if you still pay them).

Bear in mind also that the day you start renting you are treated as introducing the property into a business at market value normally so any new mortgage you get (even if for buying a new property for yourself) up to that value (including the existing mortgage of course) you can offset the interest against the rental income and hopefully reduce the profit for the tax year....

doing the sums, I think the interest only mortage amount would be the same as the rental income...so I dont think there will be profit!!

My rationalle is I get to keep the home and the equity which bulds in it, and will be paying lumop sums opf the capital each year, so in 5 years or so I can clear the mortgage on the new house with teh equity from this one...just sounds too easy!!

down the letting agents for me this weekend for advice I think....

Have got a draft tenants agreement of you need it. I rent one of my properties and, touch wood, haven't had any problems in last 4 years. That said I've just had the gas service done and I'll need a new boiler next year!! )-:

thanks mate, I'll keep that in mind...need to do some research now on insurance, tax, liabilty etc

If you need any free tax advice pm me Bradders...

A mortgage on a let property usually attracts a higher rate of interest if you go that route.

The tax side can make yer eyes water as well.

A mate made £200,000 on a property on paper but just couldn't bring himself to sell it when he realised HMG were gonna trouser thick end of £80,000 of that £200,000

Plan B is now in operation needless to say.

It's not something to enter into lightly, your efforts might also bring IHT issues are well.

I'd deffo look carefully in to the tax side and how it may affect your particular circumstances.

Ray.

Trick with CGT is to have lived in it for a while! That way you get the last 3 years of ownership treated as if you reside there and therefore tax free....

Bradders, over this last summer I worked for a national chain of letting agents - in the 'customer care' - this meant for snagging/extending leases/evictions/inspections/inventories/GSC's/damages etc etc.

Well - all I can tell you is that it opened my eyes big time:o

C, not an expert BUT now knowing what to try & avoid!

See the thread I've just posted about bailifs etc., I know of several people who have been left with a string of debt collectors, bailiffs etc. chasing ex-tenants for money they'll never get back.

Some tenants use rental properties purely for having an address from which to run up big debts - I have a friend who evicted tenants 6 months ago, but the new occupier is still regularly receiving mail/visits for the previous tenant, who it seems has run up huge debts...

Martin

you are so right martin.
The law is now very heavily weighted to the tenants side.
Paul - this can usually go quite well, but in some cases can be downright horrible.
I've seen LL's eventually lose the home they were renting out, purely down to finances, but that is at the extreme end of the scale.
Worst I reckon is you'd have to redecorate/replace floor coverings etc.
Do ensure you have a GSC for the property (LL's can & have been sued over not having a current one)
From next year, you must also have a full electrical check & cert (not sure of date - airbrushed from my mind atm)

Finally - read here for advice to TT's: http://www.debtquestions.co.uk/legal_rights.php

Paul, we looked very deeply into doing exactly this recently. Instead of selling my house we were keen to rent it out. Needless to say, after talking at length to an agent in Waterlooville, we decided there were too many expenses/pitfalls and we'd be better off using the equity from my house to reduce the mortgage considerably in our new house (when we get one!).
Funny thing is, we're now temporarily renting from that same agent! ;)
Happy to discuss mate.
Paul.

The timing of this thread makes me laugh.
I just found out over the weekend that a house I rent out has been used as a pot-farm.
House is now a wreck and the furniture has all gone. My business partner is investigating the costs of fixing and is experiencing a severe case of the munchies...

Trust you Chi! Did you get any gear though? :frog:

sadly, no. The police have taken it all "into evidence".
We do have about 2 tonnes of topsoil in the front yard though.

True, but there's very little you can do to spot bad debt building up - my friend's ex-tenant is being chased by British Gas, Council Tax, NatWest, 3 debt collection agencies, Yell.com, DVLA, Congestion Charge and a timber merchant....
It makes the new tenant want to give up and leave, which is a shame as they seem quite good, and it lives a really nasty smell hanging over the house...

A agent should do periodic checks o the house to see if it is sitll in good condition, If you let it your self you still can do the checks yourself, this should avoid certain problems

Bloody hell Martin. How did you nip forward 11 minutes and guess exactly what what Red-Duc was going to say ???

Do us a favour...can you nip forward to next Sunday morning and tell me what Saturday's lottery numbers are going to be :lol:





Frank will be a long in a minute telling us it's all down to resetting the server clock, or some sane, logical explanation like that, but it's nice to dream

Just one of my many talents Jools..... :lol: