Staying outside the home on Passover
Question
Good evening. I am married, thank G-d. I will not be spending Passover at home. We leave on the eve of the holiday at noon. If we want to enter the house once or twice for a short time, in order to take some additional clothing: 1) Are we obligated to clean the house for Passover, and if so, what should be cleaned? Or there is no need to clean at all and it’s enough to sell and annul the chametz. 2) What should be sold? Is it possible to sell the whole house, and yet to enter it once to take clothing? Thank you
Answer
Hello
1. Every person is commanded to search and burn chametz, even if halachically he has a way of avoiding this obligation.
2. Any place that is not sold to a non-Jew on the 13th day of Nissan before the beginning of the night of the 14th day must be examined for chametz.
3. A person who stays in his house on the night of the 14 of Nissan cannot sell the entire house to a non-Jew, because he uses the house.
4. It is true that in such a case that a person is not staying at home on the holiday, he can sell most of the house from the 14th day of Nissan, leaving only the places he will use on the night of the 14th until he leaves his house. He still has to search for chametz according to the law and with a blessing in places that he left for his own use.
5. One is allowed to enter a place that had been sold on a one-time basis to take something, but do not enter it many times, because doing so makes the sale into a joke.
Source
Shulchan Oruch, section Orach Chaim, chapters 431, 433