Changing mortgage type

I'd say your best bet is to move your mortgage to someone else - you may even save yourself a few more pennies.

I'd suggest that a 'good' reason from the Halifax's point of view might be that you're forced to move away with your job & need to rent your existing house for a while. If the choice is that they either let you rent or you sell up and get rid of the mortgage, they'd rather keep your mortgage. If you're doing it to make few bob, they're less likely to want to keep your mortgage on it's existing terms.

Most lenders charge a premium for mortgages on rented properties as there is more risk - hence if you stay with the Halifax, they'll probably want to up your monthly payment & buy buy goes your saving for renting (By the way, be aware if you use an agency to let your house out, they're likely to charge

10% a month service). But if you change lenders, you're likely to get a better deal than you're paying now anyway. Shop around.

HTH Vic

It is against most residential lenders terms and conditions to allow you to rent your property out.

If you rent it out without permission, you are breaking the T&C's. Also if the lender does not acknowledge the presence of a tenant, then no legally binding contract exists that prevents the lender kicking the tenant out, even if *you* the landlord has a lease with them. If they say it is ok, then you stop paying they have to abide by the lease before entering into eviction and repossession procedures.

But to Let mortgages usually offer a higher rate than residential mortgages because there is a higher risk to the lender.

The only way you are going to get them to agree it is to lie. Say you are going to work abroad, moving to another part of the country but will return and want to keep the house.

If cannot condone lying, and if you are found out you will still have been in breach of contract.

Best bet it to convert to a Buy to Let mortgage, and then convert it back when you want to live in it again.

"Phil Deane" wrote

Are you sure? If so, how could *any* tenant be certain they are secure - without knowing the landlord's full financial situation re mortgage etc??

I very much doubt that. Your contract is with the tenant and the reason lenders don't like tenants without their knowledge is the problem in getting them out if the owner fails to pay his mortgage.

OTH, how does the lender know there's a tenant there if nobody tells them and the borrower does not default on his payments?

Rob Graham

In message , Rob Graham writes

If the payments are kept up to date then everything is fine.

But if the they are not, the if the lender honestly doesnt know there is a tenant, then the tenant can be chucked out; if the lender does know then by merely acknowledging the existence of the tenant implies agreement and then the tenant cant be chucked out.

The most important thing is for the landlord to tell his insurance company that the property is tenanted, this is vital.

"john boyle" wrote

How is a tenant meant to ensure that this situation doesn't arise? (presumably they'd like some security of tenure!)

Absolutely.

Rob

It's quite likely to be fatal if you don't and fatal if you do, particularly if you're with a mainstream discount insurer, because they tend not to cover tenanted properties.

So if you don't tell them, they won't pay when you claim, and if you do tell them, they'll cancel your policy and show you the door.

Insurers who will take on tenanted properties are a little difficult to find. Luckily most reputable letting agencies are also brokers for the right kind of insurance, and the better ones will happily sell you insurance without doing their utmost to get you to let them manage your property.

In message , Tim writes

If the landlord does what most lenders would require, then the tenant would be served with a notice advising them of the mortgagees interest, but of course if they do not get the notice it doesnt mean that there isnt a mortgage!

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

Not so, there are loads of them at reasonable prices too.

The Land Registry

will send you a list of all the charges on a property; you need form OC1. Then you can contact each mortgagee and let them know that you are a tenant.

C'mon, answer the question!

I thought I did, I'll put it another way, the tenant cant be sure unless he searches at the land registry/land charges registry even then a puisne mortgage or equitable charge might not show up.

Which is why, if tenant law does what it was designed to do, one would expect the tenant's rights to tenure to be stronger than the lender's right to repossess, or rather that the lender's right to repossess to be no stronger than the landlord's.

It is clearly unreasonable to expect a tenant to do searches lest a landlord has kept him in the dark about the existence of a lender. So if he can't be sure, then surely Nanny's intention is that he needn't be.

I'm not sure what you mean by your puisne reference. If a mortgage postdates a tenancy agreement (which is what puisne in this context means) then surely the tenant has prior rights almost by definition.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

I take your point, but there are other reasons which put the tenant at risk which he may not know about even if the property was unencumbered, i.e. no insurance, bankruptcy of landlord, failure of landlord to maintain/repair property etc.,

In this case I intended 'puisne mortgage' to be a mortgage in which the mortgagee does not hold the deeds.

None of those put the tenant at risk of loss of entitlement to occupy. If the property is poorly maintained and falls apart, the tenant will be able to sue for alternative accommodation (or worse if it's seen as constructive unlawful eviction). If the landlord is also bankrupt, then that's tough, but surely bankruptcy alone is not a problem. The liquidator would have no stronger rights than the landlord and would have to wait for the tenancy to expire before attempting to sell the property with vacant possession (or may well prefer not to sell, and take the income, or sell with sitting tenant to another landlord). Likewise lack of insurance is not per se a problem either except inasmuch as it could lead to bankrupting the landlord.

What difference does whether a mortgagee holds the deeds make to the question of how easy it is for a tenant to discover whether a mortgage exists?

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

.. If he hasnt got enough dosh to rebuild the property. In every case, including the mortgagee kicking the tenant out, the tenant can sue the landlord on the lease, but it could be acedemic.

Its an example of a charge that does not appear on a public register anywhere, just in the mortgagees records.

Begorra. I assumed all charges appear in the Land Registry records. So what happens if a 1st charge is paid off, leaving a 2nd existing? Surely an unscrupulous owner could sell a property to a buyer who is unaware of a remaining charge of which there is no record.

I've only ever known it with unregistered land and where the charge would not be registered at the Land Charges Registry. A prudent subsequent mortgagee would let prior mortgagees know of his existence and then on redemption of the prior charge the deeds would, get sent to the subsequent mortgagee in the chain.