Owning your own home

Some reading on the subject here You may also find that when you apply for a mortgage for your next purchase, the existing mortgage will show up when they do a credit check. If you can't show it's a legit BTL type mortgage it may limit new borrowing. (I don't know this for a fact, more guesswork).

This is basically freeing up equity in your property. Let's say you bought your home for £100k using £20k savings and £80k borrowing. Some years later the value has gone up as has your income. You then want to raise some cash for some reason (extension, second purchase, etc.). Let's assume the property is now worth £150k and your income would permit borrowing of £110k. You remortgage for anything up to £110k, pay off the outstanding balance of the original borrowing and the remainder is yours to do with as you please.

A lot of landlords were using this to build up a portfolio of property prior to the last slump. Prices were rising so quickly that equity could be released in a very short time frame. Lenders were also falling over themselves to write new business. Those were the days.....

"He said he had never heard of anyone being forced to pay backdated extra payments when they were discovered to be letting out a property but said these landlords were almost never discovered."

Cheers. I probably have some more work/saving to do before I get that villa..