To not move out of rented house until I'm ready?

[longtermsinglemummy]

I have rented my current home for 5 years. I've looked after it as if it were my own and we've been really happy here. The landlord lives abroad.

In April I had a phone call from the letting agents asking for the property to be valued as the landlord was looking into selling it (huge shock as you can imagine). To cut a long story short he did decide to sell the property and we were given 2 months notice on 21st May, which was then extended by another 2 months expiring on September 22nd as it was still unsold.

In this period I have complied with their wishes. I have had people view the property (which was galling as it feels like our home), and then a mortgage valuation and survey once the house was sold (they only told us it was sold at the end of July). Since then we have looked at so many houses both online and in person but there were none that we really liked or that were suitable for us. I also have legacy credit issues which have stood in our way.

I have finally found a house that we like, and they will have us

But am I being unreasonable in saying we are not able to move out by the 22nd? This date would put so much pressure on me as I couldn't get my head around moving until we had somewhere to move to, so still have loads to do. There is no chain, the buyers aren't selling their house and my landlord is abroad and has a home there. I also have to get my daughter back to university which wipes out one weekend. My ideal scenario would be to vacate the house on Monday October 10th, 2.5 weeks after my notice runs out.

I just feel that I have been a really good tenant over the years, I have been compliant during this horrible shitty period when I could have been obstructive had I chosen to be. The letting agents are saying it has to be Sept 22nd and it's not possible to go past this date, contracts have been drawn up etc.

Surely another 2.5 weeks couldn't be that much of an issue?

YABVU, if you want to stay on your terms buy the house yourself otherwise stick to the contract as has your landlord.

Being a good tenant does not give you any rights to the property beyond your tenancy agreement, nor does treating it like your home.

But the buyer is a victim of the landlord who decided it was more important to get 2 additional months rent than ensure the property was sold with vacant possession.

indeed. I guess if you can't trust tenants to leave when legally asked, he shouldn't have allowed her to stay the extra two months.

Cost? The OP would be forced to leave to months early (less time to adjust) and the LL would have lost rent. Losers all round.

The OP didn't do the LL a favour by staying. That was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

For those saying that landlords should wait until one renter is out before showing the house to other renters, have you considered how that would actually work? There'd be such urgency to get a new tenant that they'd take whoever can move straight away.... Which would mean no more viewing properties a month or two ahead and making plans, but instead rushing at the very end or you'd end up payng two rents.... I'd far rather have the small inconvenience of letting people into my rental than that!

If the house was up for sale you could always have bought it yourself....

Yabu. You rent. It's not your house. Once you buy your own you won't have these issues

ATEOTD, if a landlord wants to sell a property vacant, then s/he needs to ensure it's vacant before they accept an offer. I don't have a great deal of sympathy for greedy landlords who are prepared to risk a sale falling through because their tenants refuse to leave - just for the sake of a few months' rent.

so, what you are saying is that in our system, the standard is NOT to trust tenants to follow the law. That if you are an LL selling a home, and you follow all the rules and notice periods, you should plan to leave the place empty for multiple weeks simply because tenants can't be trusted to leave when they are legally supposed to.

Great. doesn't that just leave places empty for really no good reason?

@Fraggle indeed. knock on effects.

All because people can't be bothered to move out.

She hasn't been legally asked to leave yet. She has the notice of intention to obtain the court order requiring her to leave.

If for some reason a landlord needs to be absolutely sure the property is vacant on a particular date, then he has to allow enough time to get a court order if necessary. It is foolish of the landlord to rely on the tenant leaving before the order is granted if the date is absolutely critical and the tenant cannot move without a court order if hoping to move into social housing.

I'm a landlord.

I'd have expected you to be packed up and ready to leave at the end of the 2 months notice originally given.

I wouldn't even hesitate to contact your next landlord and inform them of the situation, and your sense of entitlement. I think you'd see pretty quickly that with no viable credit or reference you'll struggle to find a home.

I also wouldn't hesitate to pursue you for additional costs.

You've had 4 months. Rather than getting bogged down with court orders (which will never go in your favour, and will only drag out the inevitable - bad reference and additional costs to pay), get your arse cracking with packing.

How is it foolish for someone to expect the return of their property when they have provided the notice required by law...?

Because the notice is not the court order.

The only real threat the landlord has is the reference and costs to push the tenant out without a court order.

Surely if the sale completes on the 22nd then it is no longer your present landlords property, it will be the property of the buyer?

I'm sure there's an insurance complication, would you be prepared to pay for any damage you could potentially cause during the 2.5 weeks you'd be staying there.

You could cause the sale to fall through.
Get your arse into gear and get packing, you've got time.

thinking the solicitors would be incredibly unlikely to exchange contracts while there are stil tennants in a property due to the risk of them not leaving and the sale being unable to complete.

Myredrose So here we have a situation where we sign a AST that has the "able to show other rents around when the time comes" etc clause and you have signed that. OK so what do you think would happen if you said to the LL or his/her agents you can scrub that clause when the agreement is finished LL can have the place back and LL finds new tents in his/her own vacant void time.

What do you think your chances would be of actually being able to rent the property in the first place?.

Furthermore what does the MM posse think should happen at the end of the tenancy with the viewing by new tenants issue.

Also. What if that was your property you were renting out?. What would you think reasonable?

I don't really get why so many people think it's ok to hang on after being given notice to leave, until there is a court order. The notice gives time for you to find somewhere else, the property belongs to the landlord and he's entitled to have it back, if he follows the fair process.

All the advice to stay put and wait for court orders is equivalent to telling someone to take out a loan to buy a car, then see how long you can keep it without paying anything.

A tenancy, like a loan agreement, is a contract which you agree to; if you deliberately break it and exploit the fact that it takes time and expense to enforce the law through court action, you may get away with it, but it's likely it will affect your chances of renting or borrowing money in the future - which is completely fair.

If the council make you wait for a court order before they will consider housing you, then that's really tough and you'd have no choice but to go through that process, but otherwise, it's just bad behaviour.

In practice what happens with savvy tenants is that they change the locks when they take over the tenancy (legal provided you keep the old ones and replace them when you leave) and then don't make themselves available to open the door for the letting agent except at their convenience.

The only recourse for the landlord is the reference in that situation.

justaboy I don't know if you missed my post where I said that I was a landlord, I was renting at the same time.
It's skewed much more in favour of the landlord, I absolutely think it's unreasonable to expect a tenant to have people traipsing around their home for no benefit to them. Hence I reduced my tenants rent and gave them 1k towards moving costs.

I was completely harassed, anyone who tries to portray letting/estate agents as respectful towards tenants is living in fantasy land.

I agreed to an open day, then I got extra requests for viewings, one which lasted 1.5hrs while they opened my wardrobe doors, asked stupid questions about the garage door and acted as if I was the vendor.

Am I going to risk my children's A level results and GCSEs results for a landlord who issued notice the day an offer was accepted- no,

I paid 70k in rent over 2.5 years, part of being a landlord is covering vacant periods.

and has had the privilege of his mortgage being paid

It's not a privilege. You're giving him money to live in his house. He's sold you the use of the home. Your credit rating is shit so you couldn't buy. Do you expect the landlord to let you live there our of the goodness of his heart?

You're being flaky OP. Get organised and leave when your tenancy ends.

Unicornsarelovely Course any decent letting agent or LL would give a reasonable notice that they wanted to inspect the property or do works etc so you'd still have the let them have access at a reasonable time?..

Myredrose yes but if you signed a rental contract and there was clause therein that you did not agree with should you have signed that contract in the first place?.

Or did you have it removed with the agreement of the LL or the letting agents?.

There's an argument that it is morally right for the tenant to leave on the date specified in the notice but the tenant is not breaking the law by staying and it is not a legal requirement to move on that date.

The risk for the tenant is the reference and potential court costs and there are certainly circumstances where these would have no impact on the tenants at all eg people moving out for building works on their main home.

If you agree an inspection in advance with a decent landlord, you would also probably make sure you're in, so the issue of whether the landlords keys work doesn't arise. He'd only find out they didn't if he tried to do something without agreement.

If people put things in a contract that can't be legally enforced then more fool them. Sign away I reckon. If someone wants a roof over their head they've no chance of they won't pretend to agree to that.

I think Justaboy that it goes to the heart of what is 'reasonable' , which is open to interpretation.
If my contract says that I have 'exclusive posession' then it is already being contradicted.
The showing of potential buyers is of no benefit to me, if I am getting harassed for viewing, I have no fear of putting my foot down.

I have taken a previous landlord to court though and won, I am not going to be bullied by whatever a greasy little letting agent puts in his home made contract.

I am thankfully out of renting now and no longer a landlord but I feel strongly about the lack of protection for tenants.

There's an argument that it is morally right for the tenant to leave on the date specified in the notice but the tenant is not breaking the law by staying and it is not a legal requirement to move on that date.

really? then why would a court later tell you to leave?

as someone put it above, am I not legally obligated to make my car payments until I see a court order?