Has anyone regretted stepping off the wondrous property ladder?

[Hadenough]

Make sure he keeps you on the electoral role to avoid losing your residence and health benefits.

Residence benefits, what are they?

 

[GrahamM376]

Residence benefits, what are they?

Non residents aren't allowed to have ISAs for instance, and GP services can be withheld. Our UK car insurer refused renewal when they found we were out of UK for more than 6 months, although still tax residents. All insurers ask the same residence question and very hard to open a bank account as a non resident.

 

[Neeves]

very hard to open a bank account as a non resident.

Very hard is an understatement.

If you have a bank account, anywhere, keep it active (edit - dormant accounts can be closed, been there done that - just rescued the funds , - so active is the key word close edit). Once its closed it is very hard to re-open and almost impossible if you are not resident.

Jonathan

 

[Bru]

There is a difference (of course) between being out of the UK for large parts of the year and living aboard in the UK

However, without a legal residence it's all too easy to become "of no fixed abode" and that's a right royal pain in the bottom to say the least. It becomes extremely difficult to access GP, dentistry, benefits etc. and well nigh impossible to get work (temp or permanent) etc.

It is infinitely preferable to have a legal address ashore where you are resident for legal purposes (if not for practical ones) unless you are in the fortunate position of having a legitimate residential mooring (one with planning permission, where you pay Council Tax, and ideally where you have some security of tenure although that's a somewhat mythical beast)

We're not stepping off the property ladder altogether, we're just climbing back down a few rungs and giving our eldest a boost to get on the ladder himself. We'll be for all legal purposes resident at his new house and indeed will have the exclusive and permanent use of one of the bedrooms. That gives us somewhere to stay when visiting family and friends up here, a winter bolt hole if we decide to escape the icy wilds of Essex for a while and, crucially, somewhere for Jane to bale to if anything happened to me. It also gives us a base if one or both of us needs to pick up some temp work to bolster the finances (temp work being dead easy to get in Kettering, anyone around here not working is either unemployable or bone idle)

What we lose is potential future gains from property price rises (to all intents and purposes) and we'll no longer have an asset against which we can borrow (but then we don't intend to borrow, quite the opposite). We also lose the potential boost to our pensions from the value of the family home but that would have been difficult to realise anyway. Jam today :encouragement:

 

[RAI]

We'll be for all legal purposes resident at his new house and indeed will have the exclusive and permanent use of one of the bedrooms.

Will you be tenants (pay council tax) or be lodgers? Can a landlord be a tenant in his own property? The tax laws on non-resident landlords oblige the tenant to report rent to the tax man. Transferring ownership of property has tax issues. Will the utility bills be in your name?
I found a whole nest of legal and tax nasties when looking into doing the same thing. It looked like it would work if I was landlord (though in reality living aboard my boat), my daughter lived with me in the house and her husband was a lodger there. It fell apart because daughter and husband wanted to pay the council tax to help them get a future mortgage. So they had to be tenants.
Mostly people get away with it though.

 

[Bru]

Will you be tenants (pay council tax) or be lodgers?

Effectively lodgers. There's a limit, now reached I think, on how much detail I'm willing to go into on a public forum but let's just say that there's a significant element of sidestepping some of the obstacles the legal and financial professions like to put in the way and a considerable amount of trust, with unavoidable associated risk, being placed in our eldest not to let us down

 

[BradleyC]

That guide only applies where the right to be registered was acquired before 2003 but not acted upon at that time (thus meaning you had to have been in possession of the land before 1991)

It's obvious you've been reading up on the subject but believe me it is by no means as clear cut or as easy as it seems to be from the information presented on-line. Misinformation in a lot of cases, even from credible sources. It doesn't get a lot better when you take professional advice either unless and until you engage the services of a specialist legal expert

I'm not at liberty to go into details in a public forum but I've been deeply and personally involved in an adverse possession case and you really don't want to go there. It's certainly not something you want to willingly get yourself embroiled in

Go sailing and forget the idea of grabbing some abandoned unregistered land!

I do, though, quite like the idea of acquiring a cheap off the grid property in an out of the way place. However, I doubt that is as easy as you think it is either. In fact I know it isn't because as I think I mentioned earlier in the thread we spent several years searching for somewhere to set up a self sufficient smallholding and such an "off the grid" abandoned farm or cottage was exactly what we wanted. Rarer than a very rare thing and priced to reflect that (with the exception of properties with serious restrictions or problems such as being within the boundaries of a National Park, an absolute show stopper because they won't let you do a thing with the place)

Forget that too and go sailing!

We are, in fact, right in the middle of stepping off the property ladder right now. On the verge of exchanging contracts on the sale of the family home and the deposit put down and survey arranged on the yacht we'll be moving aboard early next year.

Our financial circumstances are such (due to an ill-advised business venture some years ago) that we have to sell up to clear the mortgage and release the cash we need to move forward. We're keeping a toe-hold in the property market as we'll have an interest in the house our eldest son is purchasing with our help but the benefit of that is convenience rather than financial (now or in the future)

We've taken the "jam today" decision on the grounds that we don't know what the future will bring anyway.

I agree with you. Our liveaboard strategy is based entirely on maximising the house and land that we already legally own.. Adverse possession isn't part of our liveaboard strategy at all - I only mentioned it in passing because I'd been researching it recently. You are absolutely right that it is a complicated area. Obviously, if you go breaking into someones home and squatting there then that is a criminal offence, and rightly so. However, there is a world of difference both legally and morally between breaking and entering someones home (which I would condemn out of hand) and someone finding a house that has been sitting empty for thirty years, and which has no windows and the door has either rotted or been broken so a person can just walk in. A property in that condition is not a residential dwelling, as its not designed or adapted for use as a residential dwelling before being enterered into and a person isn't forcing entry under those circumstances. In a situation like that (which is what I am thinking of when talking about adverse possession) the adverse possession procedure can be a useful way of bringing such properties back into productive use. As you say, its a complicated area, and for that reason most people steer well clear, and with good reason.You should certainly take specialist legal advice before going that route. It is certainly never ok to go breaking in to other peoples property, and anyone who does that kind of thing deserves everything they get!

Either way, its not part of our liveaboard strategy so its somewhat of an irrelevancy.

My original post asked whether the naysayers who predict gloom and doom if you step off the property ladder were usually proved right, and its been nice to see that in most cases people have been comfortable with their decision, and haven't rergretted it (although a couple have). I've found it fascinating seeing how peoples financial choices are completely linked to whether they have a "jam now" or "jam later" mentality, and there have been some great and inspiring posts on this thread on that point.

Good luck with your house sale. Fingers crossed that it goes through ok, and good luck with this new and exciting chapter of your life. We'll hopefully not be that far behind you, as we're doing the same as you. Roll on becoming a liveaboard ...

 

[Bru]

Good luck with your house sale. Fingers crossed that it goes through ok, and good luck with this new and exciting chapter of your life. We'll hopefully not be that far behind you, as we're doing the same as you. Roll on becoming a liveaboard ...

ta, can't wait! Just the ruddy legal beagles holding things up now :disgust:, I suppose they've got to justify the considerable quantity of beer and toy tokens they're soaking up

 

[BradleyC]

Absolutely!

 

[BradleyC]

I have to say this is a really sensible approach and you sound like nice people. The sort of people I would be pleased to find anchored in the same bay as myself, so we could share a drink and a chat.

To the OP, perhaps you just need to do the hard graft for a bit longer in order to be able to afford your liveaboard dream. All the comment about finding free unregistered property smacks of a something-for-nothing attitude which is a bit distasteful. That may not be your real self, the thread may just have been somewhat diverted. I certainly hope so.

As I've pointed out in another post, our liveaboard strategy is based entirely on maximising the house and land that we already legally own.. Adverse possession isn't part of our liveaboard strategy at all - I only mentioned it in passing because I'd been researching it recently. Obviously, if you go breaking into someones home and squatting there then that is a criminal offence, and rightly so. However, there is a world of difference both legally and morally between breaking and entering someones home (which I would condemn out of hand) and someone finding a house that has been sitting empty for thirty years, and which has no windows and the door has either rotted or been broken so a person can just walk in. A property in that condition is not a residential dwelling, as its not designed or adapted for use as a residential dwelling before being enterered into and a person isn't forcing entry under those circumstances. In a situation like that (which is what I am thinking of when talking about adverse possession) the adverse possession procedure can be a useful way of bringing such properties back into productive use. Its a complicated area, and for that reason most people steer well clear, and with good reason.You should certainly take specialist legal advice before going that route. It is certainly never ok to go breaking in to other peoples property, and anyone who does that kind of thing deserves everything they get!

Having clarified that point, I'd like to add one further commnt in relation to this thread. Whilst most posts have been relevant and constructive (and in some cases very inspiring:encouragement other people have come back with offensive personal remarks. As a child it was drilled into me that personal remarks were ill bred, ill mannered and usually ill informed and unkind. They are particularly distasteful when being made to someone whom you have never met, and you are dealing with them solely online. It should be possible to share information on a public forum without personally attacking people. Before doing so, you should certainly clarify whether you have understood the point that someone is making correctly.

Whilst I appreciate that not everyone was taught these rules as a child I would suggest it is a good policy for eveyone to adopt when dealing with people on a public forum. It's basic good manners.

 

[Kelpie]

Interesting thread. Reaffirms my faith in the plan that we are putting into action- building a small second home on land we already own... The worst case scenario would involve selling the larger house to clear the mortgage, renting out the new house while we go sailing. Best case scenario is that we manage to hang on to both of them and have more income... I'll get back to you in ten years time to say which way it went...

 

[Sea Devil]

For me, if I couldn't keep property in the UK I wouldn't become a live aboard. You never know how things might change in the future. Downsizing to something tiny would be preferable to having no property.

I absolutely agree... Whilst the cruising lifestyle is wonderful and fulfilling when you have done enough of it you need to be able to stop. Having a plan to get into it is pretty easy but having a plan to get our of it is much much harder!!

About 25 years ago I was sitting in my boat anchored in Alicante harbour thinking this is all simply the most fun I can possibly have! I looked at my bank account statement and saw that in X years there would be no money and the lifestyle would be impossible.

Got onto a jet plane flew back to the UK and purchased a little flat which I redecorated and rented out. Went on around the Mediterranean then headed back to the UK and found a job for a while and with the proceeds purchased with a bit of a mortgage another little flat.. (In both cases these were small incredibly inexpensive properties) Another flat came up in a very old block with a lease that would run out when I was 105 years old and I was able to get that one as well...

I became a non resident UK tax payer, paid a close relation to help me 'manage' the day to day problems - broken washing machines, combi boilers etc and I sailed around the world over a period of 4 years or so... Lived on the boat after that for a while then purchased a house in France. Lost more than half of my properties paying for an Alzheimers care home and ended up living ashore.

With one exception I have never met anybody in their 70,s who still wants to live in a boat 24/7/365 If I had not invested the cruising fund into a tiny very very cheap flat to rent out then I would probably be trying to exist today on 80% of a state pension...

Either put together a 'fund' for x years of cruising and have a 'plan' for after that - or invest in property and use that to support the lifestyle or just cruise for a year or two but try not to burn your 'boats - oops houses' to finance it. Also consider a boat you can actually afford... other than the present boat mine have always been very modest and old - but just as much fun as a shiny almost new one!

Like death and taxes housing will inevitably keep pace with inflation and provide a source of income or capital - however modest. Boats will not..........

 

[nortada]

Make sure he keeps you on the electoral role to avoid losing your residence and health benefits.

Absolutely.

 

[Strolls]

purchased a little flat which I redecorated and rented out. … another little flat.. … Another flat came up … and I was able to get that one as well...

I became a non resident UK tax payer.

Are you saying you didn't have to pay tax on the income from your BTL's because you lived outside the country?

I thought the opposite was true - that BTL income was taxable even if you lived abroad.

 

[Neeves]

I think he means he became Non Resident (to the UK) but remained a (UK) Tax Payer (and maybe a tax payer somewhere else as well). He would not be taxed twice (as he is obviously an astute investor) but each tax authority will be trying to squeeze him as much as possible. As you suggest UK income is taxed somewhere (usually, but not exclusively afaik, in the UK).

Jonathan

 

[Sea Devil]

I think he means he became Non Resident (to the UK) but remained a (UK) Tax Payer (and maybe a tax payer somewhere else as well). He would not be taxed twice (as he is obviously an astute investor) but each tax authority will be trying to squeeze him as much as possible. As you suggest UK income is taxed somewhere (usually, but not exclusively afaik, in the UK).

Jonathan

Exactly.

Always paid tax in the UK and frequently in the other countries I have lived in.

Michael

 

[macd]

UK income is taxed somewhere (usually, but not exclusively afaik, in the UK).

True, and far from exclusively if you have tax residence outside the UK. The precise details will depend on the particular tax convention between the UK (assuming that's where the taxpayer is from) and their country of tax residence. The UK has such treaties with around 140 countries. There are so many differences between them that is possible to make only the most general statement about what they have in common (as Neeves did). Sweeping statements such as "all UK income is taxed in the UK", or "all income is taxed in your country of residence" are nonsense.

A summary of UK double taxation treaties can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...356800/Digest_of_Double_Taxation_Treaties.pdf

 

[Sandyman]

As I've pointed out in another post, our liveaboard strategy is based entirely on maximising the house and land that we already legally own.. Adverse possession isn't part of our liveaboard strategy at all - I only mentioned it in passing because I'd been researching it recently. Obviously, if you go breaking into someones home and squatting there then that is a criminal offence, and rightly so. However, there is a world of difference both legally and morally between breaking and entering someones home (which I would condemn out of hand) and someone finding a house that has been sitting empty for thirty years, and which has no windows and the door has either rotted or been broken so a person can just walk in. A property in that condition is not a residential dwelling, as its not designed or adapted for use as a residential dwelling before being enterered into and a person isn't forcing entry under those circumstances. In a situation like that (which is what I am thinking of when talking about adverse possession) the adverse possession procedure can be a useful way of bringing such properties back into productive use. Its a complicated area, and for that reason most people steer well clear, and with good reason.You should certainly take specialist legal advice before going that route. It is certainly never ok to go breaking in to other peoples property, and anyone who does that kind of thing deserves everything they get!

Having clarified that point, I'd like to add one further commnt in relation to this thread. Whilst most posts have been relevant and constructive (and in some cases very inspiring:encouragement other people have come back with offensive personal remarks. As a child it was drilled into me that personal remarks were ill bred, ill mannered and usually ill informed and unkind. They are particularly distasteful when being made to someone whom you have never met, and you are dealing with them solely online. It should be possible to share information on a public forum without personally attacking people. Before doing so, you should certainly clarify whether you have understood the point that someone is making correctly.

Whilst I appreciate that not everyone was taught these rules as a child I would suggest it is a good policy for eveyone to adopt when dealing with people on a public forum. It's basic good manners.

Having read your posts I think you're going to have a wonderful life as a full time 100%
liveaboard. Ignore the doom & gloom merchants & just get on with it. In a few years time you're going to see the world through a different 'looking-glass'' .

 

[dslittle]

Jam now or jam later - that is the question?

That is the crux. I am luckily in the 'jam later' but my son is very much in the 'jam now'. I think that it is a generation thing and your answers might reflect various posters ages...

 

[Brimbleboat]

If its a permanent move then I don't think it makes any difference. The only reason you need to be on the property ladder is if you want to stay with a property! We sold up a few years ago , sailed awhile, then purchased again. I suppose the best way is to downsize on the boat, keep a small property and rent it and enjoy the best of all worlds.