I stumbled across an alternative way to rent out my house rather than going through an agency.
I was reading a Guardian article on how to take a mid life sabbatical (an increasingly popular trend), and ironically something I've effectively been doing for the last six years (nice, huh!) and am just coming out of.
It mentioned renting a room out through the 'rent a room scheme'....
I've known about this for year, and I don't know why this has never occurred to me before, I guess I'd just taken the name of the scheme literally, you live in your own house and literally rent a room out.
My house is small and not really big enough for two independent people, so I'd written this off, but what this article made me realise is that I can effectively rent the WHOLE HOUSE, or most of it, through this scheme.
So if I did want to move somewhere else, I could keep most of my belongings and furniture in the house, effectively use either the cellar or one bedroom as storage, and then 'rent the room/ house' to someone else as if they were a lodger, but I'd be here only infrequently, as in maybe to pick up some stuff or tidy the gardens a few times a year.
Advantages compared to going via an agency....
Basically you don't pay any tax on the first £7500 you make, you don't even have to declare it.
I could set the rent at £600 a month which could include council tax (which I'd still be liable for) and bills, and then I'd net around the same as renting it out via an agency once I'd factored in fees and tax, you pay tax on the entire rent if you rent out an entire house.
Another advantage is that I'd still have access to the house, this would depend on the contract.
Downsides...
If they set up a week farm or start crypto mining I might regret including bills, also it'd be potentially a problem with the lodger being noisy, more difficult to deal with than letting an agency do this.
How to do it...
I'm thinking we'd need a formal contract and this would ideally be someone's 20 something daughter (yeah, gender stereotyping here), someone that's just graduated and the parents are sick of living at home.
£600 with no bills and a whole house to yourself is a very reasonably price around here, it's an option.
And the government doesn't get its hands on any of the income, for doing literally nothing, which is nice!
It's an option, for sure!
Although the option may well get equalised in regards to tax in the coming autumn budget, the way things are going!
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