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

@vivainsomnia Isn't the poster saying that the EPC rating means it won't be legally habitable in future as a rental unless the owner makes massive changes?

. I am also confused as to whether or not they are actually asking you to leave.

I don't think they ae.

OP says they are now in a position to buy so are looking around. And this rental seemed the solution.

You don’t know her personal situation. Maybe her marriage is rocky? Maybe she has a relative who may need it? None of which I would expect her to have told you - she doesn’t need to justify herself. It’s her house. She can do as she pleases with it.

We’d all love to live in the perfect idyll you describe. Few of us manage it. Time to get real and find your next, and hopefully forever, home. There are lots of lovely places out there. Stop focusing on what you can’t have and look at all the wonderful choices you could have.

And I'm finding it doubly galling that, having paid them over 50k in rent and added value to their house by taking such good care of it (more fool us), they're going to leave it empty, let the garden go to ruin, just to keep it as an asset on their balance sheet

That seems really unfair.

Maybe, she’s taking the very sensible route of having a backup if she ever wants out of the marriage. Otherwise I imagine, if the house they are living in is his, she may be faced with nowhere to go while the long machinations of a divorce and financial settlement play out.

Or, maybe they see the farm as ‘when we are in good health and capable’, and this house is for when that’s no longer the case and they need to exit the farm?

So many possibilities. I think ‘just to keep it as an asset on their balance sheet’ is likely unfair.

I don't understand when you say they won't be able to rent again. Of course they will be able to. Either through an exemption, or able to claim grants or tax deductions.

My situation is similar to your landlord. My tenants love the house and might approach me to buy it. Unfortunately, I've planned my future on the rent paying towards my pension. Selling would mean paying a large tax bill. There is nothing in it for me. Its sad, but it doesn't make the landlord unreasonable.

I do understand your feelings.

The real problem is you've invested too much in a house that isn't yours- money, time and emotions.

If you had started off always accepting you'd have to move, you'd not have put so much into it.

Maybe in the time you're looking for somewhere to buy, they will think again and there's no harm asking again.

But if the town is declining because all houses are now holiday lets, maybe it's best to move elsewhere anyway?

Houses are bricks and mortar- you take your love , your family and life elsewhere.

It sounds as if your husband is very emotionally tied to where he grew up so maybe he needs a bit more of a 'fluid' outlook?

It also seems that the LL is from the local area so doesn’t seem like your typical 2nd home owner and instead is keeping her link to the area. With farmers if they hand over their farm as an estate planning mechanism they have to leave the farm so it seems like a good thing to keep an asset to move in to.

YABU it is her house and she will have her reasons for not wanting to sell it at the present time, even if those reasons aren't clear to you. I understand why you're upset but it was never guaranteed to be your permanent home.

Just because someone grows up in an area that doesn't give them the automatic right to live there as adults. I couldn't afford a decent sized house in the area I grew up in (nice part of London) - a 2 bed flat maybe but not a house. That's life! We can only buy houses in places we can afford hence I live in a less vibrant place that is more affordable.

If I were you I would have bought a house in a less desirable area and spent money on improving my own property not someone else's. This is what I think you should do moving forwards.

I echo this.

This isn't your house OP, yet you feel entitled to it due to making a nice garden.

Let this serve as a warning to others, do not get emotionally attached to a house that isn't yours.

Growl.
With luck it might be that their initial thought is they won't sell it.

I would write to them, and state

• You love the house and would like the opportunity to buy it
• You are prepared to offer £xx now (foregoing estate agents fees and surveyors reports etc)
• You will leave the offer with them

When they see it written down they may rethink. At the moment selling is a hassle (even selling to you) as it involves effort on their behalf, whereas you are paying rent and looking after the house so causing absolutely no hassle.

This

Also I didn’t get that the OP has been asked to move so she isn’t about to lose her home, she just can’t own it.

It sounds really galling for the OP and I can understand the disappointment, especially if previpusly given tje impression there might be the possibility to buy it. If she's not actually selling, do you have to leave imminently?

I'm interested in the pp who think no one should have a second home/own more than one property. I can see in a lot of seaside towns or tourist areas there is a problem, but there are plenty of circumstances where people need rental accomodation (students, short term contracts, recently separated families, people new to an area, when their own house is uninhabitable due to damage/refurbishment...etc etc)
I'm not a LL btw

its perfectly possible for them to rent it to another family, they don’t need to mention upgrades to you because if you don’t move out you might be asking for them to fit them. As a farming family, having an asset ion the form of a rental house makes sense so 30 years or whatever down the line they can move there and their dc takes over the farm.

You don’t sound wet and daft. It’s your home. You’ve paid huge amounts of money for it (as much as it cost to buy a home not that long ago). You’ve appreciated it and cared for it.

You don't want to lose your home. No one does.

I know two people who bought houses in London at ridiculously low prices because they were sitting tenants. Admittedly this is some years ago and the law might well have changed, but since the OP has mentioned buying as a sitting tenant I suspect she’s asking for a discount.

The owner obviously thinks the house might have future value to them. The OP might love the house now but once she owned it and was free to sell it on the open market her feelings might change.

I do have sympathy for the OP, having become so attached to her home it must be difficult to face having to give it up but homeowners also have to consider moving when their circumstances change.

You re mistaken about this, for England at least, Scotland tighter still.

All rented properties, used for permanent housing, regardless of construction type need to have an EPC rating of E or above, from 2030... it may become a C, with a different set of criteria for assessment.

I was going to say, reading that the landlord has married a farmer, I bet she is using the house as her safety net, it’s smart really, they may be planning on selling their land and moving into the house at some point or downgrading the farming operations or something. Or maybe she wants a bolt hole in case it doesn’t work out.

Or maybe with the farming industry as it is, having the option to sell up and move into this house is a useful safety net.

I feel for you but at the end of the day it’s not your house and never has been and it’s not up to you what happens to it. I get the sentiment, we have left DH’s village to go to the next one 3 miles away, nearer town and larger and not as quaint , so we could afford to buy. Some of our friends have to move even further to the next town, so they can buy, or one couple with a toddler we know are renting forever,’moving from whatever house is available to whatever house is available in their budget in the village. It’s lovely to live in these beautiful places and I get that second home ownership is damaging but at the end of the day property is a huge money maker and not a charity in this country that’s just how it is. Hopefully whatever you do next, you won’t pour your heart and savings into making someone else’s house nicer, because you won’t get thanks for it, sadly for you.

Most people don’t get to buy the house they want. Unless you’re loaded and lucky, there’s always compromises and upheavals. It’s a relatively rare and fortunate thing when a landlord sells to a tenant and it all goes well. You’re only in the same boat as other housebuyers, doing what everyone terms ‘the most stressful thing’. I get why you’re directing frustration at the landlord, but theyre a landlord not your vendor and the issue is your (unfair imho) expectations. You know she’s got no obligation to sell to you, and yet you kinda think she does. I sympathise but disagree.

If you know landlords aren’t in it to do anyone a favour, why do you expect them to care that the OP is a community-minded school governor? And why do you think they are looking for lovely friends instead of paying tenants?

Maybe the owner is emotionally attached to it too?
Or perhaps they've decided to hang onto it for elderly parents or their kids in the future, as it's so rare for properties to come onto the market in this location.
What makes you think they won't do the work to bring it up to the required EPC grading for another renter?

@AppelationStation I think she’s keeping her property incase anything goes awry with the farmer..otherwise she could find herself either homeless or trapped with him..I wouldn’t sell up to marry/move in with a man either.

Exactly. Sounds like this is a case of OP hoping to own the house one day and therefore hearing what she wanted to.

Errrrr no she didn't. Why do you think 'considered' = 'promised'? Words have meanings.