Consent to Let

Video explains what to do with your mortgage company if you move to a different town or overseas and wish to rent your property out.  You will need consent to let.

Transcript:

“Hello there, subject for this video is consent to let. What is a consent to let?

Well, it means pretty much what its says.  You may own your property and have a mortgage on your property, most people when they're starting out, we have mortgages on our property, on our homes and for whatever reason you may have secured a job and need to move somewhere within the United Kingdom; to a different town or a different city or alternatively you may have secured a posting overseas.

You may be seconded overseas or it may be a permanent move overseas.  Now, your mortgage, for a residential mortgage, that mortgage allows for you living in that property as your main residence but, if you're moving town or city or going overseas, you won't be living in that property any more.   You may be looking to rent a property out.

If you choose to rent your property out, if you don't tell your mortgage company that you're doing that, you're in breach of your mortgage conditions and they can technically foreclose on your mortgage. 

So, the usual approach would be to consider a consent to let.  [And] what a consent to let is:  Is you write to your mortgage company, you advise them of the situation and you ask them for a consent to let your property.  Some mortgage lenders will automatically have provision to allow for consent to let, other mortgage lenders may not be interested whatsoever in giving you permission to rent out your property.  They may not issue a consent to let.

The usual circumstance for most lenders is they will allow, they will give consent to let:

1. If you have a mortgage in place with them for at least a minimum period of time, let say you’ve had a mortgage with them for a year, two years, five years; then many lenders will grant a consent to let on that basis.
2. If you've only been with your mortgage company for a short period, let’s say 3 months, 6 months or less than a year. They will probably refuse a consent to let

But, you need to ask them and if it's possible, fine.  If it's not, clearly we need to look at re-mortgaging your property to a lender that will allow you to let. 

Alternatively, it may be that they will only grant consent to let for a period of time.  It may be that they grant you consent to let for 1 year or 18 months or 2 years and then after that it may be that it they say: “no, you’re not allowed let the property any more”;  we need to re-mortgage you onto a buy to let mortgage of some sort maybe you have to move lenders completely, excuse me, to a lender that does do buy to let .

So it's very common, as a nation we are internationally mobile. You know there are what? There are 5.5 million Brits that live overseas now. 

[So] you know what consent to let is now.  It’s permission for you to let your main residence, to rent it out. 

• Some lenders may not offer consent to let
• Some lenders will offer consent to let but only for a certain period or
• What we do is we talk and look at a more formal buy to let mortgage or a let to buy mortgage or
• Indeed, if you're going overseas, it may prove a little bit more difficult where we need to go to specialist mortgage lenders where they will do buy to let mortgages for expatriates

So that's an introduction to ‘consent to let’.  Thank you very much for watching.”