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???

The tenants have been there for 6 months now, they moved there in August, should be completing this week.

@Alwaysandforeverhere

Offer more money. Everyone has a price.

Unless their income has dropped due to lockdown or this was the cheapest property available & they won’t afford something else. If they are going to need to rely on a HA or Council to house them they won’t be able to leave until the Bailiffs come knocking.

Well I hope you accept now that you made an error of judgement and will either have to wait another potentially 6-18 months for your house or pull out, and it's not the tenants' fault or responsibility

The LL was very unwise to proceed without vacant possession, as were you. Did your solicitor not advise against this?

What can you do? Realistically, offer them cash to leave. Bar that, wait, or find another house.

If you love the house so much, then you just have to wait and pay whatever is necessary.

@wirldsgonemad

The tenants have been there for 6 months now, they moved there in August, should be completing this week.

OK. And were they notified months ago that the house was being sold & the new Owner would not be allowing them to stay? If so, they have had 6 months notice so are still being unreasonable.

Unless, as I said above, circumstances have changed for them financially & they have to stay put until Bailiffs call.

You should be angry at the owner not the tenants. He signed tenants as they are people looking around at the property to buy.
They're not unreasonable but the owner is.

Dont exchange unless its empty. I had the sellers refuse to move on exchange day! They ignored all phone calls and when I knocked on the door they were eating dinner and they had already collected the keys for their new house and werent giving any time scale to move out - they wanted both houses for as long as they felt fit. It was a real nightmare and luckily they had done a part exchange so we had a big house building company to sue and numerous lawyers were pissed off. If it hadnt been part exchange it would have been really really messy.

I can't buy with the tenants in because that would be a buy to let mortgage and those rates are much worse.

@wirldsgonemad

The tenants have been there for 6 months now, they moved there in August, should be completing this week.

So be prepared to lose potentially tens of thousands getting them out. You can apply to evict they can appeal it, stop paying rent, trash the property and tie you up for months if not a year, paying out. Your seller's a dick.

We were the tennants in this situation, it took us 5 months to find a new home within the catchment we needed . If you continue with the sale you'll need a buy to let mortgage. We thankfully wasn't served our notice for the first 4 months . Landlords fault for not knowing it was now 6 months .
I'd walk down if I was you .

Tenants have a valid tenancy - anyone else's issues are not their problem. However having said that if the tenants aren't interested in being bribed out early I'd not hold my breath for them to leave once the S21 is up either. If it goes to court I'd think you would be unlikely for them to be out this year. Then again, maybe they just haven't been offered enough to make it worth their trouble yet.

I don't understand why the owner tried to proceed with you, instead of trying to sell to someone who was looking for a BTL.

As it is, he can't sell to you now, and will have to get the tenants out before you can buy.

Or had the tenants already said they would leave?

When you looked first,it was for sale and empty.The owner then decided to rent which is a bit bizarre.Are you sure he is not hiding something?
Is their tenancy only for 6 months? Did they tell you in person that they can't find anything suitable or is it the owner's story?
The whole situation sounds a bit dodgy.

@wirldsgonemad

The tenants have been there for 6 months now, they moved there in August, should be completing this week.

In that case, find out if the section 21 has already been served and if so when - that will give you the minimum timescale (but obviously not the maximum).

As a rule of thumb you can't serve a section 21 until the tenancy has been in place for 4 months (not sure if that's changed since the extension to the notice period though - happy to be corrected if anyone knows better). It may therefore be another 4 months before their notice expires and the landlord can start possession proceedings, which will likely take a minimum of 6 months if everything goes without any hitches.

Do you know what the section 21 notice date they have been given is?

Completely mad to buy. Like others say the seller was being greedy putting tenants in at that point. What if they turn out to be bad tenants and in 6 months time they refuse to leave and he has to institute court proceedings to get them out? What if the rules change and You;ll be waiting a very long time. There's no guarantee it will only be 6 months. From what I am reading in the updated rules he cant even institute S21 eviction for a tenancy less than 4 months. So thats 10 months!

If you havent, you probably need to have a good read of this

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-and-renting-guidance-for-landlords-tenants-and-local-authorities/technical-guidance-on-eviction-notices

The house was for sale, I looked, it didn't have tenants in but they had just signed to rent that week. Owner said he is desperate to sell and earliest will be in 6 months when tenancy is up

He wasn't that desperate to sell then, was he? Unless he expected to sell to another landlord, who would be just about the only ones prepared to touch this

Forget paying them to move as that's not your job; all you can do is walk away (the sensible option) or buy it at a massively lowered price and evict the tenants if when you can

I would reduce my offer to account for the money lost and expect vendors to cough it up if they wanted me to wait, if I really, really loved it.

@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???

You are fully aware of renters rights during this pandemic, yet you went ahead regardless knowing find well that they could not be evicted during this, you still chose to continue purchasing the house?

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.

😂 why should they give two hoots?

Do you really expect them to make themselves homeless so you’re not inconvenienced?

As others have posted, blame the greedy landlord (and your solicitor, they should have advised you against this from the start), not the tenents.

That would be a criminal act. Don't do that

I was not being serious

Offer the vendor less money to compensate for the stamp duty and if they don’t accept it, then either suck it up or pull out.

I do sympathise though, I’m due to complete next month and the stamp duty deadline is stressful.

@wirldsgonemad

I won't be pulling out, I love the house, it just means waiting longer.

Do you realise the process for evicting tenants?

Because in non-Covid times it took me 9 months all in. Courts are backlogged massively atm.

If they are looking for social housing they have no option, but to stay until they are actually evicted.

Can you buy it using a buy to let mortgage, use the rent to cover that cost. Then they move out in 6 months, you move in and remortgage? It's a lot more work but could save you thousands.