One of the questions I get asked quite a lot of times, “Can I sell a house and rent it back?”
Well, no, it is much more difficult to do that now. There is one or two companies that offer that service and they have to be regulated by the government.
Going back 10 to15 year ago it was quite common.
It was quite popular where there was a lot of council houses that were sold, and suddenly the property boom came, and the values went up massively. And a lot of people said, “Right, yeah, we can get some cash out of here. We can still live in the property, we can pay a market rent, but we can get all the cash out…” and plenty to spend on whatever they want.
And this was very popular back then.
In my opinion, it was easy money for vendors, but it also contributed towards the 2007-9 financial crash. And there’s no doubt about that because what was happening was that investors were buying the properties and saying, “Well, yes, here you are. You can rent it back all day long in exchange for a small discount.”
But they were actually buying using a bridging loan and remortgaging the property for the market value the same day.
So, when the transaction actually went through, say they’ve purchased for £100,000, they would also have taken a mortgage for £100,000. Using the £100,000 they would pay the vendor £80,000 and take£20,000 for themselves.
So, it was big business, and it went on and on and on.
But a lot of people started to lose their homes because of it, and the government stepped in and stopped these types of transactions unless done the buyer is regulated by the Financial Services Industry. And the cost of being regulateds is very high and only affordable for some companies
So, that’s the answer to whether you can sell and rent back.
You can’t really do that. It’s illegal unless it’s through companies that are regulated to do so.
And I know that well because I was involved with buying a lot of houses for people back then. There were some genuine investors then but equally if not more so many unscrupulous investors who were kicking out the tenants after six months
If you want to have a chat with me about this topic or any other, please feel free to contact me on 0191 486 2386.
