Renters won't leave the house I'm buying, they 'can't find anywhere suitable'.

[wirldsgonemad]

But thanks to covid, a section 21 means people have 6 months instead of 2 months to vacate and this means I get charged £4,250 extra in stamp duty, plus mortgage application fees and survey of £1k plus my life being on hold for 6 months.

They are fully aware of my position, they know I'm a single mother of 2 small children and they don't give two hoots that they're actions are costing me £5-6k and months of waiting.

God give me strength to get through these next few months without attacking them on a regular basis.

What would you do in my situation???

[quote AnaisNun]@wirldsgonemad

I’m assuming you’ve totally got the blinkers on about this house, if you rented for 10 years but have only just - on prompting- considered the tenants perspectives?!

If you’ve got the blinkers on about that- and ofc you’ve tried to buy a house with tenants in it, which is mad in itself- what else are you “not considering”?

Is the house REALLY that perfect? If I were you, I’d take a proper step back, try and set your passion for this house to one side and have a rational think.[/quote]
I thought the tenants knew when they moved in that a sale was agreed. There's a lot of new build nearby and I thought they were renting short term whilst waiting for their house to be ready.

So - what’s your next move, OP?

Are you in rented, or selling your own property? What’s all this delay doing to your current housing situation?

And for Op to want to continue working with the current solicitor and estate agent is beyond belief. The story indicates they have been entirely negligent in not flagging and advising about the issues if a tenanted property, the timescales this would result in (10 months minimum from start of contract) and pursuing the issues of whether S21 was issued.

And yet Op doesn’t seem bothered by this negligence or to recognise the unscrupulous landlord in terms of his timing of agreeing a sale when the fact a tenancy was just starting , meant it would be almost a year before exchange and possibly longer. She seems to think there are excuses for the professionals not doing their job (although presumably she will be paying the solicitor) and even if she ever completes on this property, miss the stamp duty holiday.

I don’t think anyone could proceed with this purchase and this estate agent, this solicitor and this seller, given all that has happened and the fact that the Op can now be in no doubt at what charlatans all of them have been and that the only people who haven’t done wrong are the tenants. But she persists in saying she wants to proceed. And this is why I think this thread is a reverse or leaves out really significant details for some reason...because as I’ve said before, it just doesn’t hold up.

You assumed that they were there only short term. Or did EA/vendor lead you to believe that. Not the tenants fault and why should they put themselves out for someone they are not contracted to. Maybe they were misled too.

Also you'd better hope they are decent people (which given they won't leave means it's likely they won't be), because you've got to move into the house they will be leaving. Good luck with whatever they leave behind, its your problem then.

Your anger is misplaced. The sellers should have waited until the house was vacant to sell, but they wanted their rent and their sale proceeds.

I am in exactly this position. It’s not greed. I rented put my aunt’s house to pay for her care. I am now selling it to pay for her cate. The tenants have refused to leave. How is this my fault?

I'm sure it used to be standard practice to issue a section 21 'just in case' to coincide with the end of the fixed term tenancy even if the plan was to renew. That saves time if the plan to renew falls through and the tenants need to go.
I agree the EA and solicitors have been appallingly rubbish here and probably negligent. Absolutely bonkers.
OP - you won't necessarily get vacant possession at the end of the 6m, if the tenants do not wish to leave you will need to get the Court involved, it's not straightforward. Which is why all EA worth their salt will issue one straightaway so that if court action is needed at least time hasn't been wasted.

I'd pull out or ask for a VERY reduced purchase price here.

As stated, it is unfair that the landlord is making the tenants intentionally homeless.

The UK has some of the weakest tenancy laws in Europe, actually having a better renting culture rather than treating tenants as scum, would stop the UK's obsession with property, and lead to investing in industries that can create jobs.

@RhiWrites

Did you let the house on a 6 month tenancy (for which the norm is that it translates to a rolling FTC at the end of the first term), without making it explicitly clear to the tenants that you intended to sell soon? If so- yes, you are very very much at fault.

@RhiWrites

Your anger is misplaced. The sellers should have waited until the house was vacant to sell, but they wanted their rent and their sale proceeds.

I am in exactly this position. It’s not greed. I rented put my aunt’s house to pay for her care. I am now selling it to pay for her cate. The tenants have refused to leave. How is this my fault?

That’s an entirely different scenario. The OP’s sellers actively sought tenants whilst selling.

However, if you went into being a landlord without properly understanding how tenancies work, as many many do, then that is your fault. Too many LL’s don’t realise how ending tenancies actually works and that the tenant isn’t doing anything wrong (and indeed sometimes has no choice) by going through the legal tenancy ending and eviction process.

@MargosKaftan

This thread has desended into anti tenants.

This doesn't help the OP - who should work out what the delay is costing her and reduce her offer by that amount, stating its due to the delay as you didn't view the property with sitting tenants.

The vendor took a risk by renting out an already empty property that they'd had an offer on. The risk has backed fired. They could refuse the reduced amount and put it back on the market, but I believe tenants don't have to give access for viewings - or can insist on set times with 24 hour notice. They could make it very hard to sell to anyone else. And the booming local market will slow down with the end of the stamp duty holiday.

I think a few posters on here have been standing up for tenants, tbh!

I agree that the OP should seek a reduction to cover her additonal costs caused by the delay arising from the owner's decision to rent out the property, but that's only part of the story. The tenants could be there for another 4 months, more if the owner has to get a PO, bailiff's warrant etc.

A lot of people think house prices may fall because the combined effects of Brexit and Covid will cause a recession. There's also the inflationary effect caused by the stamp duty holiday, with people prepared to pay more to beat the deadline (although imo this is only likely to apply at the upper end of the market).

If this property is worth significantly less a year after the sale price was agreed, the OP might not want to pay 2020 prices when 2021 prices are lower. And a drop might mean her lenders won't lend the amount they have agreed to for the current mortgage offer, if she has a high LTV ratio.

@RhiWrites I do sympathise with that situation. However I don’t think that many landlords are renting for that reason.

Also you did choose to rent it out. If you didn’t want to have the issues that came with tenants you shouldn’t have rented it. You can have the benefits of having tenants without the cons.

The vendor has played you like a fiddle here and continues to do so.

I don't get why you can't see that.
He would have pissed me off so much by this point that I'd have sacked it off when I realised the s21 hadn't been issued.

Get looking at other properties and take great delight in telling the vendor you are pulling out.

I think also there’s some really outmoded thinking on this thread.

Not all renters are “transient” or likely to want to move regularly. When I was young, single and lived in London, I stayed renting in the same house for 5 years. Only moved out when I moved in with DP.

I’m now a 30something single mum, renting again, with DS to start primary school in September. Ideally I’d like to stay in this house until he finishes primary school at least- that’s 7 years.

I’m under no illusions that the landlord will necessarily not want to sell in that time- but I did ask him explicitly did he have PLANS to sell any time soon- and was told not.

Some of us rent because we have no choice, and we’re likely to be stuck renting for the rest of our lives, because of the way house prices have risen and the size of the deposits needed. And we can’t save because we’re paying rent...

It would be nice if landlords appreciated that tenants are generally on the back foot in ever sense.

I thought the tenants knew when they moved in that a sale was agreed. There's a lot of new build nearby and I thought they were renting short term whilst waiting for their house to be ready.

The problem is that every post youbweite was about what you though was in place/happening. Not what you knew.

You have been very foolish in not clarifying and establishing any of these things as fact before proceeding.

You are now looking realistically for at least 12 months to force an eviction through the courts. At least. If the tenants are genuinely looking for somewhere else, maybe you'll get lucky. The seller should be compensating you for losses and inconvenience. It's a situation entirely of their making, but you should also have done better research on what happens at the end of a FTC at the moment

I agree, @Hollyhocksarenotmessy. I'd also be interested to know what the OP's solicitors said on the point.

Did you tell your conveyancing solicitor that there were tenants in the property, @wirldsgonemad? They should have explained the potential pitfalls to you if so.

I thought the tenants knew when they moved in that a sale was agreed. There's a lot of new build nearby and I thought they were renting short term whilst waiting for their house to be ready.

Why did you think this?

@CakeRequired

Also you'd better hope they are decent people (which given they won't leave means it's likely they won't be), because you've got to move into the house they will be leaving. Good luck with whatever they leave behind, its your problem then.

The fact that they don't have the means or the opportunity to move to a suitable property now and/or don't want to leave before the end of their notice period doesn't make them not decent people

@RhiWrites

Your anger is misplaced. The sellers should have waited until the house was vacant to sell, but they wanted their rent and their sale proceeds.

I am in exactly this position. It’s not greed. I rented put my aunt’s house to pay for her care. I am now selling it to pay for her cate. The tenants have refused to leave. How is this my fault?

You should have sold it rather than rented it.

Your anger is misplaced. The sellers should have waited until the house was vacant to sell, but they wanted their rent and their sale proceeds
Which is greed and immoral.

In your case, if you out the property for let with intention of using the rent to pay care fees, but realise a year later that it's not worth the hassle, then fair enough.

If however the intention was always to sell but decided to rent whilst selling thinking it could take many months, that's immoral.

In your case OP, you are being disingenuous. You visited the place empty so you knew the people rented after or at the sane time. The first thing you should have asked was whether they were made aware when they queried about the place.

They have been aware, said they were ok with it and then decided to stay as long as possible but that's the risk you then take buying a property with tenants in situ.

Why anyone would be a landlord is absolutely mind boggling to me. We have an empty property in the family that can't be sold yet, and it seems a shame to have it lying empty when housing stock is low around here, but fuck that!

@Sheepies

Wait what?! How does your house even theoretically help the housing stock problem if you’re planning to sell? So what, someone gets a home for 6 months and then you sell it? You don’t think it’s a shame being a landlord is such a hassle because of the housing shortage, clearly, you think it’s a shame because you could have additional rental income.

@RhiWrites

Your anger is misplaced. The sellers should have waited until the house was vacant to sell, but they wanted their rent and their sale proceeds.

I am in exactly this position. It’s not greed. I rented put my aunt’s house to pay for her care. I am now selling it to pay for her cate. The tenants have refused to leave. How is this my fault?

You have my full sympathy. It's just a really difficult situation to be in.

I say two months deposit but an advance plus one month deposit. A lot to pay at once I’m sure you’ll agree

Rent in advance is the norm in the UK and has been throughout my lifetime, @UsedUpUsername, even when rents were paid weekly. I'm 65 and can remember my parents working out how many weeks' rent they would have to pay before next payday (DF was paid monthly).

Someone moving in and out of rentals on the same day will only have to pay rent on the one they're moving into, so that is not an additional cost. They'd have had to pay that rent even if they weren't moving. The only additional upfront cost is the deposit, and any difference between the two rents.

It used to be far, far worse. Letting agent fees could easily run into several hundreds of pounds, and some LLs/agents asked for a deposit equivalent to 2 months rent or more. There would be fees for taking up references, fees for the tenancy agreement, fees for credit checks and all sorts. Stopping all that shite has been one of the best things the Tories have ever done for tenants.