“What will you do with your house?” This was one of the first questions we got when we said we were thinking of going travelling for a while. We could have just sold everything and banked the cash, but it was important for us to have a base to come back to when we were ready. In 2019 we had a friend move in for 3 months to look after the house and the cats (remember that most insurance policies require your house to not be left empty for over 30 days!) and we had budgeted to carry on paying the mortgage and bills. But going for this long we couldn’t afford that, so we had to rent it out. Here’s how we went about it - and I’ll be really honest from the off, it was hard graft!

DE-CLUTTERING

We have lived in our house for 8 years and are lucky with the amount of space we have. What this does mean though is you fill that space and we knew that de-cluttering was going to be tough but a necessity. The kids had their own playroom, we had 4 bedrooms, the garden was full of toys, furniture and a hot tub….

We started about 6 months before we were due to leave and worked on one room at a time, starting with the least used rooms and creating piles and boxes for ‘keep’, ‘bin’, ‘charity’ and ‘sell’. We even got the kids involved, although them it came to their play room things just gradually disappeared over time without them noticing as had they known the toy that hadn’t played with for a year would have suddenly become their favourite!!

We donated clothes that were going to be too small for the kids when we returned, and were ruthless in that if it was well-worn or we hadn’t worn it in months then we didn’t need to keep it! It’s amazing how much the charity shops got, and how little you actually need.

Our charity pile included things to donate to friends (mainly clothes for their younger kids), charity shops, the kids school and pre-school, and the donation bins at the local tip. Our local tip became a regular haunt the last 4 months before travelling and I don’t think I would be lying if I said we did 25-30 car loads in that time!

We also got a skip for a week to tidy up the garden and through a lot of the bigger items into it - the trampoline was well past it’s best, the kids swings, old rotten wood that was being saved, paint pots with that inch of paint in you keep just in case!!

In our sell pile we used various online marketplaces which was time intensive, and we did two car boot sales which was cold (it was March) and hard work for how much we really made. I’m guessing we raised about £700 across all the selling platforms which isn’t really a lot for the quality and volume of stuff we shifted. Shoes, kids toys, clothes and books did not go well so we ended up donating them. Outdoor games and household appliances went better and I was shocked to sell 5 inflatable items at a drizzly car boot one Sunday morning!

Things to keep gradually made their way into boxes which grew along our landing - some went into the loft and others put to one side ready for our storage unit.

Over time, the house got steadily emptier and more echo-y but it was only the last 3 weeks that we really went for it, and perhaps left ourselves still too much to do at the end.

STORAGE

We knew we weren’t going to sell everything as we would need it when we came back. Our bikes were a great example of this - we could have sold them for a fraction of their value, but we would need to buy 4 new ones on our return so items like this we said we were going to keep. We rented a space of 100m3 which costs us £160 a month, so not cheap and it is precariously stacked to the rafters! Thankfully we rented our house out part-furnished so we didn’t have to put all our furniture in there as well as all our belongings otherwise we would have needed even more.

Renting the house

We stumbled upon the owner of an estate agents by accident but knew instantly it was him and his company we were going to entrust to look after our lovely house. The house went on the market at end of January for an April letting date - we knew we only had a small market for the rental price and size so we needed to leave a few weeks leeway. We opted for a fully managed service so whilst we pay a higher % each month in fees (taken from the rent), we have peace of mind that we aren’t going to be bothered whilst abroad for every little niggle. They are do regular inspections too which was important for us. Our fees are 13.5% but be prepared to pay anything in the 10-15% band. This does include cover for non-payment which again we needed and felt was important.

Whilst we advertised the house as unfurnished, the tenants we ended up with asked to keep some furniture and there was nothing we felt precious over if it did get spoiled. Anything of value or special sentiment we didn’t offer to them and that went into storage, including our beds! We have rented our house for an initial period of 12 months (and rolls thereafter) which gives us financial security, but has scuppered us somewhat in our unfortunate situation where we have had to come back to the UK as our son fell ill and we are now homeless!! (But that’s another story which you can read more about here)

MORTGAGE and INSURANCE

If you have a mortgage, it will be in your T&Cs that you can’t rent the house without the consent of the mortgage company. This is known as consent to let. We were able to apply online, pay our £120 fee to apply and it was granted within 2 weeks, no questions asked. We have to pay the fee each 12 months and it is supposed to be for a definite period of time and not for 10+ years. If you are planning on going away for years and years, then you will likely need to convert to a buy to let mortgage rather than asking for consent to let. You also need landlords insurance which costs us £80 a month for buildings cover whilst someone else is in it, and it protects against any damage they may do.

Before we get onto more practical things, it’s worth noting that we don’t make any profit from renting our house after our fees, insurance, mortgage, storage and tax is taken from what we get each month so we never saw it as an income stream towards our trip. But our mortgage is covered and that’s the biggest thing! and the tenants are in charge of paying all the household bills.

The Practical Side of house rental

MUST DOs

I didn’t realise how much we had to submit in order to rent our house out. We had to ensure we had a full electrical and gas safety certificate (gas has to be done annually), carbon monoxide alarms in kitchen and any rooms with gas fires or log burners, smoke alarms on each level (we did have these but check expiry dates) and an EPC - none of these are big jobs but they cost some money and need doing, so remember to factor those in.

PACKING

Packing up your house must not be under-estimated and it took us a lot longer and was a lot more stressful than we imagined. Despite starting 6 months out in the de-clutter phase we really went to the wire.

I estimate we had 60 storage boxes for our belongings the majority of which we sourced via facebook local sites as they are expensive otherwise. The local supermarkets also helped when we ran low towards the very end! We used vacuum bags and suitcases for bedding, towels and clothes and wrapped pictures and frames in bubble wrap and just put them loose in the loft.

To allow our loft to be used as storage we had an area of 12m2 boarded properly and have put padlocks on the hatch to ensure security and that the tenants cant use it. Lofts aren’t supposed to carry excessive weight so the items up there are generally lighter items and anything heavy (books, kitchen stuff) went in the storage unit.

We got the storage unit 10 days before move out day so we could do several trips, but hired a van with a tail lift for one day (2 days before moving out) and our wonderful friends helped us get everything in. We were then left for 2 days with a mattress (which went to the tip on move out day), essential bedding and clothes, our travelling rucksacks and a bare minimum of kitchen stuff - we ate at friends and takeaways those last 2 days and the kids moved out!

Cleaning our house for the tenants was another good days effort. Even when it was empty it needed a good deep clean from skirting boards, to carpets to bathrooms. It was a lot dirtier than we realised when everything was out - and we wanted to leave it immaculate so that the tenants looked after it well. The garden was weeded and lawn cut, and fence panels freshly painted.

On that note we also decided to freshly paint about half the house that looked a bit tired - we just used neutral paint and figured we will redecorate to our style when we move back in, but it was a blank canvas for the tenants and again would be easy to spot any damage.

All in we moved the final items out our house (or chucked the last bits such as mop and hoover in the loft) at about 3.55pm, with the tenants picking up the keys at 4pm. The estate agent was doing the inventory and very thorough inspection and photo taking whilst we were cleaning the last room. And then as we handed over the keys, we collapsed, knowing we were about to leave the UK for a year the next day!