To Sell or Not to Sell

I purchased a house in October 2001 which is my sole residence.
I recently got married and have now gone halves on a mortgage with my husband to purchase a property near his workplace - however the property is in his name. I would ideally like to hold on to my house I purchased in October 2001 but I fear the tax clawback on Stamp Duty etc will be too much and the hassle of renting it / declaring it for rent investment would be too much - Can anyone advise me or point me in the direction of someone specialising in these types of situations ?

Would you not just hold onto it, and leave it vacant, until you can rent it out in Oct 2006 ?

Other option is to get a family member into it, and get them to rent out rooms under the "Rent a room" threshold.

Bloody Bacon report really screwed up the market: imagine having to leave a perfectly good home vacant while people are scrambling for affordable accomodation out there.

I did consider this however I would then be paying
two mortgages for the next 1.5yrs something which I don't really have the resources to do

You could just take the chance and rent it out under the table.

If you declare it, you'll have to pay the stamp duty rate for investors applicable at the point of first renting. How much is the house worth ?

House is worth around 220K at the moment I believe