Renting out home and going travelling

A friend of mine rents two rooms in her home, she goes abroad for several months every year, coming back periodically to visit friends and family, basically she retains her room in the home and this arrangement suits her very well.

This is what a lot of people do because it gives them a lot more legal control over the property. Pre-covid there were a lot of sob stories from travelling landlords who arrived home and tried to go back but found that they couldn't, either because they had signed a fixed term lease agreement, or failed to give the proper eviction notice to the tenant.

The "trusted friends" aspect eliminates this, but as said above may still have some ramifications in terms of your mortgage and tax. If you're a non-resident landlord, then the tenants are obliged to deduct 20% of the rent and give it to revenue, regardless of what other income you may have.

Revenue don't need to know you're non-resident, but that means you will have to file a tax return with Revenue as if you were resident here and pay whatever is due, if anything.

In terms of relationships, you should have a relatively clear map in your head of what everyone is to expect. Are you going travelling for a year? 2? 5? 10? When you come home, will you share with them while they find somewhere else or do you expect them to up and leave?

If you're off for 3 years, then you may come back to people who view the house as their home and will need a long lead time (6+ months) to find somewhere else.

If you're off for 5-10 years, then there's every likelihood that you'll get a call while you're hiking some jungle mountain, telling you that they're moving out and you'll have no choice but to drop what you're doing and come home because the money well is dry.

Seems like a stupid thing to do to me.

How old are you? Grow up.

Go for it OP, like the above poster said we've all lost time over the past 2 years so if it's what you want to do and you have the opportunity then absolutely go for it.

However, I'm not sure if you're a frequent visitor to the Accom & Property Forum or not but there's been threads through the years of people who rented out their house to a friend or family member and didn't get it back as agreed. Their conclusion was to only do so if you're willing to lose the friendship afterwards.

This is especially the case if you're renting it out on favourable terms, when the owner wants the house back the renter might not be so quick to vacate knowing that they'd potentially be paying twice the amount elsewhere. I'm sure cases like that are in the minority but something to keep in mind.

If you are in a position to do it why not. Just in relation to income, rental income is subject to tax and you may want to factor that in to any sums as well as any costs you might incur renting in the first instance.

Even though there are horror stories here about renting to friends and family, the are vastly more rentals to friends and family that work out well for all involved that you never hear of, so don't let that put you off.

Best wishes with whatever you decide I'd say go for it if you can!

Keep a bedroom for yourselves (locked ) and rent the rest. Dont worry about not getting the max rent because it may push you into the top rate of tax.

if you do rent the entire house be very careful who you rent to .. the rules in this country do not allow you to kick someone out quickly even if you have an iron clad "this is rented for x years" in the contract and they don't want to leave.

It becomes their "home" and even though they signed something .. makes no difference.

mortgage tax relief and Capital gains are also affected by residency

OP go follow your dreams while you are young.

You will figure out how to make it work. Everything works out in the end.