I’m thinking of getting a pair of these Shimano M486 disc brakes for my partner’s bike. They’re a European set up with the front brake on the left-hand lever, so they’ll need switching over.

The simplest option would appear to be to simply swap the levers so that the left-hand lever is on the long run of hose and the right-hand one on the short hose (I can trim the hose length at the same time). This will mean however that the ‘front’ caliper will now be on the rear and the ‘rear’ caliper on the front. Are the calipers front/rear independant on these brakes? I’m assuming that they are and that it’s just the adapters that will need switching (although the fork’s post mount anyway) but it seems best to be sure.

It’ll be fine.

If you are going to disconnect the hoses, why not do it at the lever end, then the long hose will stay on the back caliper. ( the calipers are identical but, I think, the adapters are front/rear specific)
Should be no need to trim the hoses, unless they are too long for the bike.
As long as you are happy draining/refining the fluid, you should be fine.

Calipers are the same front and rear on post mount brakes, only the mount adapter is different.
Best way to swap the levers around is as follows:
Remove pads from calipers
Pull levers so pistons come out about 4mm each side
Disconnect levers
Reconnect levers
Push pistons back into the calipers

Doing this pushes any air in the pipe back into the master cylinder and you should not have to bleed the brakes. Should take you about 10 minutes to do it.

Cheers. The brakes will be going onto a 14″ frame, so I’d imagine that the hoses will need a trim. I’d bargained on draining them and then refilling/bleeding the system, but I’ll have to wait and see what turns up, if the hoses aren’t too long I may try Markenduro’s tip.