Landlords, would you consider this if your tenants asked?

No time to read the thread but if you don't ask you'll never know.
And it sounds reasonable to me.

@HirplesWithHaggis Which law…? I’m a property lawyer 🤔

Why don’t you make him an offer and agree the completion date will be in 6 months time and confirm the date.

That’s not unreasonable at all.

Conveyancing can take forever anyway.

You’ll be saving him a lot of money because he won’t have to pay the 2.5% estate agents fee.

Don’t up your rent. There’s absolutely no need as you buying it will save him a shed load of time and hassle.

Good luck 😊

I am a landlord and would definitely be happy for a good tenant to buy if they could show their ability to do so in 6 months. It would be unlikely they would back out and there is no chain to wait on or to fall apart. Ask. And best of luck to you.

I would consider it ( I wouldnt raise your rent though) it would depend on circumstances though

I wouldn't want to put a penny into the pocket of someone who treated me like that.

What the law allows is immaterial, it's not a moral or ethical code.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should, and he's turned your life and security upside down in secret, not having the nerve to tell you.

By comparison, I was renting a house back at the tail end of 2022 and after Truss' chaos my landlady had to sell. She told me, and gave me two months to move. She also said that if I moved out before that deadline then she'd refund rent for the period between moving out and that deadline. That's an indicator of decent human behaviour IMO

Until the sale is legally binding, the seller can screw you over, then the negotiations based on survey. They've not done obvious repairs so who knows what else is neglected. I'd cut my loses, move and keep saving

@DesperateTenant This jumped out at me from one of your posts.

I do have an up to date gas safety certificate but we are always told the fire is never to be used because it is unsafe. At the last check the gas engineer told us he didn't feel comfortable signing off on it but was under instructions to do so.

A friend of mine had 2 lodgers. He always made sure the gas was safe, and had an up to date certificate. He would have done so anyway, however he knew someone further down the road whose tenant died from carbon monoxide poisoning. And yet the gas engineer you had signed off an unsafe fire because he had been instructed to do so?

The LL can write what he likes in the tenancy agreement, the actual law says tenants don't have to allow viewings - not with 24 hours notice, not with 48 hours, not after giving or receiving notice to leave.

Eviction takes quite a few months. I would offer your deal to LL. He would be better off considering you as a potential buyer. There is no harm in putting this to him, show him figures and spread sheet to convince him of your intentions and commitment to this. Hopefully he will see the sense in selling to you. Wouldn’t hurt to get a solicitor to draw up a plan for this. Positive pro action if you are really keen.

All the rental agreements I’ve ever had have had clauses in about allowing viewings but I’m pretty sure that’s after you have given notice to leave, so that’s very different.

As a buyer, I’d be worried about buying a house with tenants currently in as they can refuse to leave and it could months to evict them. Some people are actually given the advice to stay until they are evicted as it strengthens their case for housing assistance etc. As a buyer, you could potentially get to completion and then find the tenants haven’t gone.
Does it say that the tenure is ‘vacant upon completion’ in the listing?

I think there may actually be tax breaks for landlords selling to tenants? Maybe worth looking into?

Could you buy where you are living in 6 months?

It's worth asking, we were in a similar situation a year and a bit ago.
But we couldn't get a mortgage, our landlord told us, he was selling and gave us first dibs to buy. So it's worth asking.
It can take up to 6 months to complete, or house sold pretty quickly.
But it was a bargain and had a lot of potential, it needed doing up and would have been worth more done up than it was sold for.
Good luck, it was very stressful and a major shock. Plus the rental market is mental and houses were letting out before they got a sign up to say To Let.

I am a landlord and would never dream of listing my property for sale without my tenants’ knowledge and I would be delighted if they offered to buy it from me

Landlord here 🙋
I thought you were gonna ask if you could buy the house, when they've no intention of selling, and I'd have said you were being cheeky 🤭
But what you're proposing, I'd agree to if I were selling. And I agree, approach them without the offer of additional rent. If I'd a long term tenant who had been a good tenant, I'd want to help them out, and would be happy to sell to them moreso than a randomer.
Go for it, what have you to loose?

Yes and I think the reason they didn’t tell you is they don’t want to risk you moving in case they don’t get good offers right away. If I were you I would offer a down payment rather than more monthly amount ir try to get a lease to own, if possible. Show them you are financially serious and they may be happy to work with you but I wouldn’t expect th m to take less than fair market value

I’m a landlord, if I was planning to sell I would give the current tenants the opportunity to consider whether they could buy before putting it on the market. If they could prove they could afford it in 6 month I’d be prepared to wait too.

Speak to you landlord and explain, the worse they can say is no.

7 times in 3 hours! At least you have got their attention.

They may be hoping to talk you around so they can avoid telling the landlord that they have annoyed you. If I was the estate agent I would want to avoid bringing any problems to the LL’s attention for as long as possible.

If you speak to them, make sure that they have told the landlord. You could ask for the LL to contact you directly to discuss how to proceed. You can then suss out their plans and consider when to make an offer.

We had a recent experience of our landlord selling the property. (we had no intention of buying the place though but I thought legally they have to offer it to the tenant first as we had lived in another rental before where the agent asked us if we wanted to buy and explained that it’s a legal procedure to ask the tenants - I might be wrong)

The real estate agents were so sneaky, they would show up unannounced and beg us to let them in - I always say no. Legally I believe they have to give you minimum 24-48hour notice so whilst we didn’t reject all viewings but those that didn’t meet the criteria we always said no. We also specified times they could see eg after 5pm on certain weekdays only and Sat morning only and rejected any request for times that didn’t suit us.

We were nice at the beginning when the agents begged us to let people view cos “the client comes from afar and could only see it that day” but they just took advantage of us as it kept on happening and we got messages that were downright rude “we are coming to see your flat today at 130pm” without asking and finally I spoke to the real estate manager and told them it’s not on and it stopped. We also declined viewings if they didn’t suit us even though they met the “criteria”. I don’t think you can blanket block all viewings and there is nothing they can do if you do block some as you have the right for quiet enjoyment as a tenant.

An offer was made eventually which we got informed of at the time however we didn’t get kicked out until they gave us notice about 3-4 months later - we were given 2 months notice at that point (and tried to encourage us to leave earlier but legally they couldn’t force us to)

There is definitely something in it for the landlord if you do decide to make an offer as he can save on agency fees and it’s pretty much guarantee you won’t pull out and settlement takes ages anyway to go through the surveys etc got nothing to lose by asking! 6 months isn’t that long - my friend took 10months to settle due to people in the chain pulling out.

I've had some seriously awful estate agents act for me in the past, so with this in mind I wonder if it's the agents being sneaky, rather than the landlord. Do you have contact details to deal with your LL directly? I'd suggest approaching them directly with your offer & cut out the Chinese whispers with a vested interest!

As a previous poster said, they may not have a choice but to sell or be able to wait 6 months, but there's no harm asking! When I was looking to sell my flat I would've been delighted if my tenants wanted to buy. I was worried about it being empty & not being able to pay the mortgage whilst I was waiting for it to sell, as I did tell my tenants & they moved out.

I then let it on a short term basis (fully disclosed when I rented it) & the tw*ts refused to move out when I finally found a buyer some months later. They apparently had every legal right to stay put & I couldn't do anything about it (nearly bankrupted me).

Both you & the LL can obviously make life difficult for each other, so seems sensible to me to have a conversation & see if you can negotiate something mutually beneficial.

I'm a LL, with multiple properties.
Be honest with your LL, the worst they can do is say no and you're in the same position... and a guaranteed buyer in 6months might sweeten them considerably and mean it is financially viable for them!

I'm a landlady & I'd definitely say yes because in reality it will take that long to sell anyway, no reason it can't go on the market with a view to complete in 6 months time due to tenant situation. Buyers might be ok with that too.

The landlord may have to sell due to rise in mortgage rates. I’ve just sold my flat and to renew the mortgage on a buy to let then mortgage company wanted evidence that the tenants were paying £2200!!! They were paying £1600 currently. I couldn’t justify that. And couldn’t legally do that to them. So no option but to sell.

You may be zble ho have them tzken down.

Contact Rightmove and see if they can do anything to help. Also speak to CAB to find out if that was legal.

It is odd that your landlord has not discussed this with you. However let’s just assume it’s bad communication and that he assumes you’re not interested in buying. Why don’t you simply contact him in writing and express an interest in purchasing the property and request a meeting to discuss a proposal that could benefit you both. Ensure any valuation is professionally undertaken and has comps as a comparison.