Ask landlord to sell us the house

You could ask. The landlord may be keen to sell with the upcoming renters' rights bill.

The landlord would save estate agency fees, void period loss, and the hassle of marketing a property. You might get a small discount based on this, but it all depends if he wants to sell.

We did. Got the house for less. Also knew what the neighbourhood and issues were with the house. Landlord didn’t need to redecorate, list with agents, or pay EA fees. We used surveyors and solicitors. Was all done in 3 months and stress free for everyone. The landlord could have made more but we’d have moved out and they would have had a vacant property or had to find short term tenants.

I would love for my tenants to offer to buy the house they rent from me! I only keep it so they have a secure home.

I personally would be happy for them to have it 10% under asking price.

They’d save on moving costs

He may only sell it if it's not a solid, long term passive income for him. But it sounds like it is that, given you've been there 9 yrs.

If you say you'd love to buy it, or you'll be buying somewhere else and will let him know re: notice, he might be more inclined as its easier than finding a new tenant.

On the other hand, it may be an opportunity to repaint and re-list it at a considerably higher rent than he's getting.

Nothing to lose in asking. I don't think you'll necessarily get a "deal" though, because that is also what he'll be looking for.

I did this with my then partner about 20 years ago. We rented the flat for a few years, the LL lived overseas and had no plans to come back to the UK, and we loved the flat so we just asked them if they wanted to sell. We were incredibly lucky to have a very decent LL who was happy to sell, obtained 3 valuations and offered it to us at the lowest one, as we had been exemplary tenants.

It all worked very smoothly thereafter, and everyone was happy. I guess they were happy to not have to evict tenants in order to sell (and thereby lose out on rent for potentially many months), they didn’t have to pay EA fees and we got the flat at a very fair price. There’s no harm in asking! Good luck!

That's not your call though. If the LL is prepared to sell, they get to name the price.

It’s a no from me because of the tax I would have to pay on it’s sale.

Bear in mind the landlord will have to pay capital gains tax. So unless they want to reduce the number of properties they rent there's no real incentive to sell.

I sold a property to a tenant a few years ago and sold at 10% off market value as they’d been in there several years and that seems fair looking at the rent they’d paid.

i later discovered they owned several other rental properties in the same development so I think they did well out of the deal with me!

We bought from our LL but it was them who wanted to sell. They agreed to a small discount as they were saving on estate agent fees and also no gap between renting it out and selling it, and lower risk of us pulling out last minute or trying to lower the price last minute.
In addition we saved on moving costs + no overlap between paying rent and mortgage.
And they let us keep all the white goods, curtains, lamp etc basically everything that was here stayed.

Nothing wrong with asking but I wouldn't expect much of a discount.

Assuming LL will buy another house they'll have additional fees to pay. Biggest downside for them is that they'll need to pay cgt on any gains on the property. It all feels like a downside for the LL unless they had a plan to sell.

We purchased off our LL last year. He made a hint at wanting to sell, we'd just come into some inheritance so made an offer to buy.

He got it valued, as did we - we ended up biting the bullet & offering £30k less than the value fully expecting to enter into a negotiation. LL accepted our offer with no hesitation as he wanted a smooth, quick sale (so don't be afraid to go in low)

We obviously didn't have the moving fees. He didn't have the EA fees. We've been here 7 years renting so knew some of the issues we were taking on that I think are sometimes hidden when viewing properties - so that was a pro.
We did however continue to pay rent right up to the last day of exchange.

We asked, landlord got an online valuation using false info (claimed it was a detached 4 bed with a garden, its a 3 bed terrace with a tiny yard that has mostly been extended over) and the insisted the minimum he would accept was more than the ceiling price of the area despite being the worst house on the street. Bare in mind we know all the maintenance he has not done for the last 15 years.

We are now buying an actual 4 bed end terrace house across the road which is bigger and in way better condition for £25k less than what the landlord wanted for this house.

When we leave he is going to either have to sell for far less than he wanted (about 50k under what he wanted) or do a FULL renovation (estimated around 30k) to bring it up to standard to get a new renter in.

Nothing wrong with you asking, getting first refusal but negotiating a price is dependent on whether LL wants/needs to sell and how much you really want to buy.

If LL is not overly bothered with selling they'll possibly not be knocking much if anything off of the market value.

He may think that you equally are saving money by not needing to move, so why would.he pass on any discounts?

Our tenants asked us if they could buy the house… we were delighted. It had been our house and We had only rented it out so we jump on our ideal new house, quickly.
We had upgraded to a bigger house, and in the 4 years of renting out the previous house, it went up in price and we sold it for the same as we bought our new house for. So we upgraded for free, essentially! Didn’t make any money from renting out though.

OP there’s no harm in asking!

The risk is by mentioning a sale the landlord may well go to higher bidder leaving you still needing to find another property.

Actually @WasherWoman25 that’s a good point - my contract with the letting agent also means I pay them a commission if my tenant buys so there’s no saving at all.

We sold our house to our tenant after a couple of years of her asking. It didn’t save much fees as the agent we used for renting it out took a fee for this, which was in our original rental contract. But it was very hassle free which was nice.

I inherited a rental property that I'm desperate to sell, and I'd have been delighted if the tenants could have bought it. I never wanted to be a landlord and I hate the responsibility. I also hate that I've just had to give them a no-fault eviction order.

But unfortunately there was no chance of then buying. They've been terrible for not paying their rent, so they're extremely unlikely to have a deposit, or the credit rating to get a mortgage.

No harm in asking, but as others have said, there's no real saving for the LL so I think you can forget getting a good deal.