Selling your rented Uk home from Australia

[Anne B]

Hi,

 

There seem to be a lot of people on here who haven't been able to sell their house in the UK and have rented it out, with a view to selling it when house prices pick up. I was in a similar situation myself when I moved to Adelaide in 1994.

 

May sound like a silly question but how are people planning to actually sell their homes when the time comes ? In the end I went back to England to sell my flat as I knew it would need a coat of paint and a bit of work done to make it look good for selling. Can agents in the UK do it all for you now without you even being here?? Obviously the internet and emails and electronic banking have made things so much easier than when I was facing this problem, and I would be interested to hear what ideas people have. May be of interest to people who haven't emigrated yet who are weighing up the options.

 

Anne

[ken&wendy]

Our next door neighbour is an estate agent at present so hopefully in a year or a couple of years she'll be able to handle it for us. Brother in law is a painter and decorator (as is hubby) so if we're not back to spruce up the house then hopefully brother in law can be persuaded to do it for us.

Wendy

[Anne B]

Our next door neighbour is an estate agent at present so hopefully in a year or a couple of years she'll be able to handle it for us. Brother in law is a painter and decorator (as is hubby) so if we're not back to spruce up the house then hopefully brother in law can be persuaded to do it for us.

Wendy

 

Sounds like you are lucky enough to know some people who can help. Let's hope it doesn't take years and years before the housing market starts moving again.

[Guest HALT]

Our Estate Agent is happy to do everything over the internet. However we set it all up before we left. We gave power of attorney to our parents so they could sign papers for us. We also appointed a solicitor to act on our behalf and gave copies of all paperwork for the house to them. We had to sign some paperwork in front of the solicitors because of the new laws to do with money laundering. We also put a clause into our rental agreement that that house was to remain on the open market even although it is being rented. Hope this helps.

[Guest mysnix]

We rented our UK house out for 2 years and sold it eventually last January.

 

We left our house in the hands of our estate agent, who was also our rental agent. We had no problems with the rental being managed for those 2 years (or so we thought), apart from he twice forgot to deposit our money - but it was sorted quickly once notified.

 

Our problems began when we decided to sell though, our tenant left immediately worrying that she would not find somewhere else otherwise, so we were left with an empty house and our agent was constantly not in the office. We arrived back in the UK for a holiday 2 weeks later. The house was a mess - the garden was full of rubbish and the grass thigh high. Our tenant had cracked tiles in the conservatory, redecorated one of the bedrooms really badly and hung posters with blue tac in the lounge and torn them off, the carpets were filthy and she had smoked and managed to turn the paint yellow - in only 2 years - according to the agent it was mostly wear and tear (!!!) or they would have it fixed by their handyman - they had lost their originl inventory and ours being in Aus we couldn't determine what was what. As soon as we returned to Aus the communication yet again ground to a halt and none of the work was ever done or paid for - the agent shortly after went bankrupt!

 

Our families were eventually left with redecorating and we gave them power or attorney to sell. We sold the house after 7 months standing empty and only then to a family member who has taken it on as a rental. After paying 2 mortgages and for all the repairs we lost most of our equity and saw very little from it in the end (we couldn't rent it again whilst it was for sale).

 

Not trying to be the bearer of bad news but this was my experience of selling from here - we were probably on the worst end of the spectrum and I know of people who have managed to sell easily and with little problems - just wanted people to be aware of what can happen - we rented for 2 years thinking everything was fine and we were very wrong.

 

In hindsight we would have been better off keeping both houses and letting the UK house cover itself as we are no better off from having sold it. But even though we now have a massive mortgage (taken on assuming half of it would be paid off when we sold up) I am really glad that we have got rid off that house.

 

Nikki

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[Guest njacinthebox]

Yes and I have understood that you have to pay some sort of capital gains tax if you have rented your house out then sell. As it is considered a business. Never been sure would be interested if anybody knows about that?

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Why sell?

 

I will be renting mine out for the longer term and leaving it as an investment.

 

Yes there will be capital gains tax to pay on it, I hope !!!(that way it means I have made a gain myself ) and done this while someone else has paid my mortgage.

 

Britiain I believe will always be a desirable place to live for some people (wouldn't want to start a debate on this!! lol) but I believe house prices there will come back strong again in the long term, the olympics will certainly put UK back on the map.

 

So for me I will not be selling, plenty of people living in Oz having investment properties, why not diversify across countries. Certainly helps hedge the bets between $ and GBP.

 

Njacinthebox, the possibility of tax on the gain of property in the UK will depend on how long after you lived in it that you sell it.