Hi there, I am thinking about leaving my rental to live in my chalet for the season it is open to save money for a house deposit for my family. Does anyone know what I would need to have in place for my credit not to be affected? I was thinking of registering my address at friends or family, for car insurance, post and being on the electoral roll. Would I need to be on the council tax and the utility bills? Could I use the same doctors and dentist even if my address is elsewhere? Any help would be great, sorry if I have posted in the wrong thread.
Not sure about the pros and cons of living in a chalet specifically, if indeed that is permitted, many holiday type properties forbid permanent residency and they must be vacated for a set period within any 12 months. Any number of organisations can dictate that rule and period, from land owners to licensing councils.
My comment is about the difficulties of registered address and documentation posted to that address as proof of identity. A couple of times over the years when living with partners that have all the official documents (like council tax) and utility bills in their name, I've found it close to impossible to produce sufficient documentation with 'proof' of my residential address as all the acceptable documents were not addressed to me! Some organisations (Banks etc.) and Government Departments have very narrow choices when it comes to acceptable documentation, as often it needs to be less than 3 or 6 months old, and annual statements often fall outside that time frame (that was mostly my biggest problem)! Some documents like monthly mobile phone statements are not deemed acceptable!
Then there is time of residency at an address, again it sometimes needs to be of sufficient length to be deemed acceptable. Not everything is judged on what you submit directly either, reference can be made to credit agencies, and if addresses and timings don't tally, it can cause problems. It can be a real headache not to have a regular 'permanent' address that is 'conventional'!
People do live like you are enquiring about, so it must be possible, but not necessarily straightforwards.
What about coming at this from another angle. You say you have a 'chalet'; these can be pretty much worthless shacks, to very desirable properties. Where does yours sit? Is it worth selling it to raise a deposit for a home, maybe? Where are you hoping to buy - once you had the funds? Anywhere further north than say, Leicestershire, will be cheaper than south of there. The further up you go, the less you will pay.
The site where the chalet is would be classed as a business and if it’s only seasonal then you can’t usually register for council tax. Having said that, you are liable for council tax at the property which is classed as your “sole or main residence”, however some of these chalet/park home sites are set up differently with regard to their business rates and residential council tax. It’s probably worth a conversation with the site management to see who is liable for what - same with utilities (I guess these are included in site fees?).
The matter of not living permanently in a house is covered regularly on here, if you try searching. Seems to be do-able.
The static section also has useful advice about the differences between holiday sites & residential sites re site licenses / full time living etc. (I know you’re not in a static, but a cabin or lodge or chalet is just made of different material.)
Good luck with saving the deposit.
I think one thing that would need very careful investigation would be whether living in such circumstances would impact your credit rating, as I certainly think it could. I know that just having moved home recently has an impact, regardless of what type of home you have moved to. That is of course on top of the fact that in these circumstance your new "home" may be regarded as somewhat irregular.
As others have said, this is a topic that has come up many times before on here, but I think that most who have asked this have tended to be those intending to do it on a permanent basis rather than as a stepping-stone towards getting a mortgage. That could make a big difference. I think you should speak to a few mortgage lenders to see how they would view such an arrangement.
We lived permanently in our caravan for 2 1/2 years and it had zero impact on our credit rating which actually improved as we were able to pay off bills quickly. We used my father's address which was in the same town.
The site closed for the the winter months from Dec until March so we moved to a site that was open all year. The result was we were not obliged to pay council tax. However with the chalet if you are living in it for the 12 months then you are obliged to pay council tax.
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Topic: Can anyone help?
via mobile 06/1/2024 at 6:15pm
