Landlord won't sell. Another second home in our dying village

Crikey, you have time on your hands. The tone of many many many LLs is that they are doing a favour (eg oh I fixed that boiler within a week when I'm sure their own is done within 24 hours) / There are several LLs on this thread who are reacting with tones of outrage that the OP has had the audacity to develop home-like feelings towards her home. How very dare she be so entitled?? / Actually lots of people in eg my village don't lift a finger to help the community and I absolutely think it would help if the people who do have access to - oh what is that thing that helps in day to day life? Oh yes, a home / Yeah, it's not a reach at all from the tone of this thread (I suspect you're not a school governor!) / Read what I actually said? I'd 100% rather be friends with someone who helps out in the community than eg LLs on this thread / a sense of entitlement for wanting to buy a house that she has been told she would be able to buy, has made improvements on, and will now sit empty and deteriorating? What a monster.

Agreed. A buy to let mortgage is at a higher rate than a domestic one, agents costs will be approx 11% of the rent, and they will take the full whack up front (so 11% of the total annual rent if it is a 1 year contract), you will have set up costs for contracts, inventory, electricity certification, gas safety check, EPC rating, insurance etc. You'll need a maintenance fund, as unlike with your own property where you can leave things until you have saved up you will have to carry out repairs instantly for a tenant. That may mean an out of hours call out fee. Then there is the tax, which once you are on self assessment HMRC will require you to pay 6 months in advance. It's not a simple as use the rent to pay your rent, as you'll be using a big chunk (perhaps all) of the rent to pay these costs.

As someone else said the EPC rules haven't changed yet. It just needs to be rated as an E. It coukd be that she has misunderstood. The rules are on gov.uk.

Years ago we sold an inherited thatched terraced cottage in rural Devon. It was a lovely cottage with oodles of character but had no parking and no proper garden. We had no interest at all from locals, despite being priced by a local estate agent to sell. We weren’t greedy, we would have taken an offer but none came. It went to a outsider as a holiday home.

Regarding the EPC rules changing, I thought it would be subject to a maximum spend, not an absolute. So they will have to spend eg 10k on upgrades but if it is still not an EPC C they can then still rent it out.
It is their house, they also have emotional attachments to it.
If you have saved money, buy another house.

YANBU to be upset. But there could be 1000s of reasons, happy or sad, why she doesn’t want to sell. Happy- maybe kids are moving home, maybe the farm is going to the next generation etc. Sad, maybe she’s thinking this is her only security if she leaves the farmer, maybe she needs the income and realises that if she sells she’ll be pressured into ploughing it into the farm. Maybe she has a real sentimental attachment to the house too. You can never see through someone else’s eyes or into their marriage.

My advice is don’t take it personally. Look at your finances and save like you’ve never saved before. Don’t spend another penny on the house that’s not essential and really start looking for other places in earnest. Good advice given by other OPs, think about secondary school and your DC becoming independent. Look at slightly run down properties with better transport links and potential (towns/ larger villages). Consider shared ownership. You don’t have to live there forever. Chances are in 2 years you’ll be in a lovely place of your own and be downright grateful that you didn’t buy your current house.

I don’t think it’s entitled to think that houses should be lived in. It could be the landlord living there, or new tenants if the house was brought up to standard or sold on to someone like the op. I do think it is very entitled and wasteful to keep it empty and let it go to rack and ruin. Without someone using it regularly it will start to slowly deteriorate. (Took about 6 months for our house sale to go through and it only took that long for things like damp to get considerably worse from the point where we viewed and did surveys due to no one living there)

It’s not much of an asset if it is allowed to depreciate in value. The owners are entitled to do that but entitled being the word.

The most likely scenario is they will think things over during the next year and come to the conclusion that they need to upgrade and rent or sell. If they sell they may well ask op who will probably have moved on in a different direction.

This is a weird thread and a misleading title. It isn't a second home. It's a rental property which enables renters to live in the area. It's not like it sits there empty apart from three weeks in August.

OP if your landlady had never rented out the property then you would never have had the pleasure of living there.

Yes I agree with you, I couldn’t afford any of the houses we bought and did up at today’s prices and the cost of materials is sky high compared to what they were. But it’s not impossible to find houses that need work and improve them as long as you do the work yourself and are flexible about where you’re prepared to live.

The issue is not second home owners, whose houses are cared for and used, but absentee owners who let empty properties fall into disrepair.

Edited to clarify owners not landlords

No landlord is going to let a house sit empty! Surely they'll just switch to Airbnb which I guess is not bothered about EPC ratings.

The landlord didn’t promise to sell. They said they would consider selling at some point down the line , not the same thing, not even close.

They could be Tenant farmers and want something to retire to

Of course you are entitled to feel that way op as the situation is a very sad one for rural communities. Unfortunately, there are plenty of landlords coming along to say how great the situation is purely because they don’t want to lose out themselves on their extra assets if the system was improved in favour or the many.

Doer uppers aren't often much cheaper though.

We bought a doer upper nearly 20 years ago and it was significantly cheaper than similar but modernised houses and weve just done it gradually 1 room at a time , extended, new roof etc....but it's taken 10+ years. (DH does a lot of DIY including plumbing himself)
Now houses that need doing are barely any cheaper....and materials etc are more expensive than eg 10 years ago

They may reconsider, when they’ve done the number crunching. My landlady Initially said no because of the mortgage. But didn’t want to rent again and knew I was looking elsewhere. So offered it to me.

My granny sold off a chunk of her garden many years before I was born and a house was build on the sold land. It was never lived in. Nice bungalow. Vacant for over 40 years. Madness.

Nobody knows why they want to keep it. Holiday home, home for their kids, alternative home if they split, sentimental reasons.

There is no reason why it will "fall into ruin" if they decide not to let it out. Maybe they will do something radical like employ a gardener or someone to look after it.

At the end of the day it is their house and they can do what they want with it. Best to find another one to buy.

The rental market is currently huge. Thanks to the selling off of many private rental properties. It'll work out. It's a compromise. It all depends how desperate they are to stay in the current house.

I'm sorry you are in this position but I'm afraid I think YABU.

It is disappointing, but they are under no obligation to sell you the house. However, I would be kind to yourself; don't think of the amount of money and time you spent on the rental as 'lost', think of it as an investment in making a happy home for your family.

On a more practical point - how much did you offer? Did you get an honest valuation of the house, or ask the owners how much they wanted for it?

There is a very big difference between you saying that you would buy it from them for £400K and they think that they can sell it further down the line for £600K. Maybe they were actually trying to be tactful?

Who knows? But if you want the house more than they want to sell it, they are certainly not going to part with it for less than a very healthy market price.

This happened to friend of mine. They lived in rented place 8 years. Wanted to buy. Landlord refused. They bought another house, moved out , landlord put up for sale almost immediately

the reason she felt this happened was that they knew too much about the house, what it needed in terms of work, the draw backs. They’d have offered a realistic price, given things like estate agent not being needed.

it was sold way above its true value, friend thinks that the issue they knew about were covered up to get that price.

True, but even if it was an issue now, the system of building inspections is very flexible.

I was on a massive new build secondary school project over the summer, and it was discovered the flat roofing contractor had not used the required thickness of insulation - I stood up there as site agent, shooting the breeze on the issue with the LABC inspector, who after pacing around and humming and ah'ing decided as the roof was structurally sound and waterproof and insulated, we'll let it go - roof certified - no illegality, no back handers, these matters just come down to the professional opinion of one person, another inspector could have viewed the situation differently.

So even when things change, if you had a property inspected by 3 EPC inspectors, expect 3 different outcomes.

This normally doesn’t work for tax reasons. You’ll get taxed 20% or potentially 40% on the income and have lettings agent costs. Plus if you have a decent sized mortgage the after-costs cash flow is often zero these days.

You can have financial independence and protection without contributing to the housing crisis.

And you can even have more financial independence and protection by renting out a lovely property you own in a desirable area with your pick of tenants desperate to move in.

Really? So you think locals had 2 or 3 properties and sold to speculators etc?

Of perhaps they moved away, retired/downsized or haven forbid died and their children who live miles away, sold on the open market?

Buy another house, rent it out. Use the rent to pay your rent. Plus, negotiate a lower rent on your home, given that it's no longer officially rentable.