[Mickstim]

We are beginning to think that if our house isn't sold by May (when our PR expires) that we would rather leave the house empty to sell and rent somewhere in NZ. But there are a few things we are wondering about:

1) What happens with paperwork - do they courier stuff to be signed etc?
2) The garden - we don't have family nearby so how do you get someone to maintain it (and we have a side gate that is kept locked and only opens from the inside!!)
3) Do you leave lighting, heating etc. on?
4) Do agents do anything to help (like clearing out junk mail when they come?)

Loads of other questions keep coming to us but I would love to hear any experiences people have, and how easy did you find it to sell and deal with all the legal stuff etc from so far away?

Any help much appreciated, then we can make a decision and stop living in limbo land!

Thanks!!

[Peter&Liz]

Make sure you inform your insurer if you do move and leave your house empty, as the number of days a property can be left empty varies across different insurers.

You want to make sure that you are fully covered even if it means they sting you for a few more pounds!

Peter

[neilw71]

Yes - we left ours completely empty, but had the luxury of 2 sets of parents nearby who could help when things came up. To try to answer your specifics:

1) Give a parent Power of Attourney and they can sign the papers - a lot easier than couriering stuff around the world!

2) Employ a contractor to keep the garden tidy - the lock is such a minor thing in the scale of things - just get it changed.

3) Yes

4) Depends - ask them - our didn't as we didn't need them to :)

Insurance - we had to find a specialist Insurer to cover the empty house.

Neil

[Mickstim]

Thanks for that! Problem is that WE are the parents and the kids are in NZ already, so we really don't have anyone we would give power of attorney to. I guess that can be overcome though. I think if we had family nearby who could keep an eye on things we would feel more at peace but I only have a sister 100 miles away and everyone else is out of the country. It isn't the sort of thing we would be comfortable asking friends to do on our behalf.

Decisions decisions!!

[sizzlingbadger]

Could you take a holiday to NZ and get your PR activated ?

Estate agents won't take away junk mail, we've viewed quite a few empty houses in our time and unfortunately they don't sell as quickly as a furnished, lived in house.

Fingers crossed you get a house sale quickly :nice1

[marybelle]

Just a thought as to the power of attourney.
You will I take it be going through a solicitor to sell your home. If you have a family solicitor you could give them power of attourney, or if you don't have a family solicitor then ask your close friends who they use or who they would reccomend.
I would also suggest that if you are going to employ a gardener and entrust keys to them (even if it is only to the back gate) then it would be safer to get a personal reccomendation from someone you trust.

Best of luck

Marybelle :cheers

[Mickstim]

Thanks again guys. We had thought we would go on holiday to activate our PR but Michael is due to retire in April so we would come back here to no jobs, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of point to that! I think maybe giving the solicitor Power of Attorney may be the best solution. Hoping it doesn't come to to this but we need to have plan B neatly lined up ready for the worst!

Barb x

[tea drinker]

Hello
Can anyone recommend a specialist insurer for an empty house as mentioned in Neil's post?
My current house insurance only covers me for, I think, 90 days
Ta

[Brijan]

when we emigrated we had a similar problem, the sale was agreed but we were in a long chain, we left our solicitor holding signed contacts and left a power of attourney with my cousin, we left in august and eventually after a threat to put the property back on the market got a settelment in late nov,

[neilw71]

Hello
Can anyone recommend a specialist insurer for an empty house as mentioned in Neil's post?
My current house insurance only covers me for, I think, 90 days
Ta

I can ! :) I had to dig deep as it was 3 years ago:

www.shieldinsuranceservices.co.uk

020 8574 7796

Neil

[nippa&pippa]

We also left an empty house as hasn't sold before we left for NZ. Took another 6months before finally sold.

Ensure your neighbours have contact numbers of either you, your nearer family or your friends who willing to "look after" your house. Few times that we had neighbours rang my parents that there was problems with our house, water leaking out of toilet :exit , fences blow down during last jan's storms! etc

Also ensure you have enough money in UK to pay for any damages happening to your house while you are in NZ, like we had to pay someone to repair several fences after storms as doesn't look good to have fences down while you are on market ;)

Leave all paperwork with solicitors who will deal with exchange of house sale, just sign all the paperwork before you go then solicitor will keep in the file till house sale, then contact you for your permission to go ahead. That we did with our house sale, even my parents had spare copies just in case.

[tea drinker]

Thanks Neil
Made a note of details...I now have so many post it notes full of useful info that Im going to have to get a notebook to keep them all in!
Thanks also for other comments Sophia

[Sam B]

We left an empty house. At first when we left it was rented out to a family and a property agency were managing it. Then I decided to sell up so I could buy here. First we had to ask the tenants to move out, because I did not think the house would sell with them in. Then the property agency who managed the tenancy showed round 3 estate agents, emailed me the valuations and helped me pick an estate agents and solicitors.

The house sold very quickly, but it was still empty for 4 months because selling a house in the UK is so tedious. During this time (luckily summer so no need for heating etc) I paid a reputable gardening services to come in once a fortnight to mow the enormous lawns and tidy up the garden. The property agents popped in every 3 weeks or so to check the house was ok. I had no family nearby to help out. It was all fine, but rather stressful.

Selling a house from here was good in one way, as I was emotionally attached to the house so it was good to be out of the way and not having to clean the whole time. However, it was alsl extremely stresful as there were numerous delays, and I often received bad news on Saturday morning and then had to wait until Monday night before I could do anything about it.

Paperwork was easy - they email it to you, you print it and then sign it and return by post. It takes about a week. I did everything in advance so I never held anything up. I left holding things up to my buyers, they were experts at holding things up!!