Can I Rent Out My House and Buy Another One?
Buy-to-Let · 7 minute read
Can I Rent Out My House and Buy Another One?
By Kieran Ali, founder of CiK Finance · Published 11 August 2026
The short answer
Yes, in most cases. You can rent out your current home and buy another, either with consent to let from your existing lender or through a let-to-buy remortgage, which can also release the deposit for the next purchase. Expect a 5% stamp duty surcharge on the new home and a rent-based borrowing test on the old one.
- Usually yes, through one of two routes: consent to let (temporary permission from your current lender) or let-to-buy (remortgaging onto buy-to-let terms, often releasing equity for the next purchase).
- Renting it out without telling your lender is a breach of your mortgage conditions. If you let it out, it goes through one of these two routes.
- Keeping the house means the 5% stamp duty surcharge applies to the new purchase: £50,000 instead of £20,000 on a £600,000 home.
- Most lenders want you to have owned and lived in the property for six months before a let-to-buy remortgage, and borrowing is decided by the rent, not your salary.
- Sometimes selling is the better answer. The test is whether you would buy that house as an investment today.
"Can I rent out my house and buy another one?" has been behind ten-plus cases on my desk in the last two months. A job abroad, a bigger family, a school move. You do not want to sell the house you have, but you need to live somewhere else.
There are two proper routes, they solve different problems, and picking the wrong one, or worse, picking neither, gets expensive quietly.
Do I need permission to rent out my house?
Your residential mortgage almost certainly requires the property to be your home. Letting it out without your lender's knowledge breaches those conditions, and the consequences range from a forced switch onto a higher rate to, in serious cases, the loan being called in. Insurance is the quieter problem: a standard home policy generally does not cover a tenanted property, so a claim can fail exactly when you need it.
So the real question is which of the two routes fits.
Route one: consent to let
Consent to let is permission from your existing lender to rent the property out while staying on your current residential mortgage. It is usually granted for a limited period, often carries a fee or a small rate adjustment, and releases no money.
It suits situations that are genuinely temporary: an eighteen-month posting abroad with every intention of moving back in, or a house that will not sell in time for a move you have to make now.
What it does not do is release equity. People ask their bank for consent, get it, feel organised, and later discover the deposit they needed for the next house is locked inside the property they just agreed not to remortgage.
Route two: let-to-buy
Let-to-buy is two transactions on the same day: you remortgage your current home onto buy-to-let terms, usually raising capital in the process, and you complete the purchase of your next home at the same time. The old house becomes a rental with its own mortgage; the released equity typically becomes the deposit on the new one.
The criteria are stricter than people expect. The common shapes, drawn from published lender criteria at The Mortgage Works and Family Building Society among others:
- You have owned and lived in the property for at least six months.
- There is a simultaneous onward purchase, with the new address on the application.
- Maximum borrowing on the let property commonly sits around 75-80% of its value.
- Some lenders require the same solicitor to act on both transactions.
- The new property must be immediately habitable.
Criteria vary by lender and change often; treat these as the shape rather than the rule. Our full let-to-buy guide covers the lender criteria, the timing traps and the costs in more detail.
The worked example the calculators skip
Say your current home is worth £350,000 with £150,000 left on the mortgage, and the next house costs £600,000. Illustrative numbers, rounded.
- Raise on the old house: a let-to-buy remortgage at 75% of value could lend up to £262,500. Clear the £150,000 balance and around £112,500 is released, subject to the rent supporting the loan.
- The rent test: lenders typically want the rent to cover the mortgage payment by a set margin, tested at a rate higher than you would actually pay. If the rent falls short, the loan is capped at what the rent supports, whatever you earn. Some lenders can, in certain cases, use surplus earned income to bridge a shortfall (top slicing).
- Buy the new house: £600,000 with the £112,500 as deposit means borrowing roughly £487,500 on a residential mortgage, assessed on your income as normal.
- The bill people miss: you own two properties at the end of completion day, so the higher stamp duty rates apply to the entire new purchase. On £600,000 that is £50,000 rather than £20,000, using the rates on GOV.UK. And note what the example just did: the whole £112,500 went into the deposit. There is nothing left for the £50,000 stamp duty bill, so it has to come from savings, or the deposit shrinks and the borrowing on the new house goes up. Either way it belongs in the plan from day one, not as a surprise at exchange.
Every figure above moves with your circumstances. A calculator gets you a starting point. The rent on your specific property gets you a plan.
I am not a tax adviser; confirm your stamp duty position with your solicitor or accountant before committing, especially around the replacement-of-main-residence rules, which carry more nuance than any blog should pretend to cover.
Should I rent out my house or sell it?
A fair number of people who ask this question should not keep the house. I would rather say that here than after you have paid the surcharge.
Keeping is emotionally easy. You know the boiler, selling feels like going backwards, and "we could always rent it out" postpones a decision. None of that is a financial reason.
The cases that do not stack up tend to share a pattern. The equity trapped in the old house is exactly the deposit that would have bought a better next home. Or the honest numbers only work if a tenant pays every month for a decade without a gap.
My test is blunt. Take the equity you would leave behind, imagine it as cash in your account this morning, and ask whether you would spend it buying that exact house as a rental. A no means keeping it needs a better reason than momentum. When that conversation happens honestly, a fair few end in a sale, and rightly so.
Common questions
Can I rent out my house without telling my mortgage lender?
No. Letting the property without your lender's agreement breaches your mortgage conditions and usually invalidates your buildings insurance for the tenancy. You either need consent to let from your current lender or a remortgage onto buy-to-let terms.
How long do you have to live in a house before you can rent it out?
For a let-to-buy remortgage, most lenders want you to have owned and lived in the property for at least six months, and some ask for longer. For consent to let, it depends on your existing lender's policy. There is no single legal minimum; it is lender criteria, so check before you plan around a date.
How much tax do I pay if I rent my house out?
Rental profit is taxable income, and on a personally owned property the mortgage interest relief is restricted to a basic-rate credit, so higher-rate taxpayers often pay more tax than they expect. The exact position depends on your circumstances; CiK Finance does not give tax advice, so speak to your accountant before you commit.
How much extra stamp duty will I pay if I keep my house?
On a £600,000 purchase, keeping your old home means around £50,000 of stamp duty instead of £20,000, because the higher rates (standard bands plus five percentage points) apply when you own two properties at the end of completion day without replacing your main residence. There are exceptions around replacing a main residence, so confirm your position with your solicitor.
Is consent to let cheaper than let-to-buy?
Usually in the short term, yes: a fee or small rate change against a full remortgage. But it is temporary, releases no equity, and leaves you on a residential product for a property that is now a rental. Which is cheaper overall depends on how long you let the property and whether you need the money out.
Can I do this if I am moving abroad?
Often, yes. Consent to let can suit a fixed-term posting. For a longer move, expat let-to-buy exists but the lender list is shorter, foreign currency income is usually discounted, and keeping a UK bank account and credit footprint helps materially. If you will not be UK resident for stamp duty purposes when you later buy, a further 2% surcharge can apply to purchases.
Working out which route fits?
We will run your actual numbers both ways, keeping the house and selling it, before you commit to either. No obligation.
Kieran Ali is the founder of CiK Finance, a specialist mortgage and protection firm working with company directors, portfolio landlords and clients with complex income. CiK Financial Ltd is an appointed representative of PRIMIS Mortgage Network, a trading name of First Complete Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Information correct at the time of publication (11 August 2026) and subject to change. Figures shown are illustrations only; any lending is subject to underwriting, and criteria can change depending on circumstances. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may change; CiK Finance does not provide tax advice, so please speak to your solicitor, accountant or a qualified tax adviser.
Most Buy-to-Let Mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.