Landlords, would you consider this if your tenants asked?

[DesperateTenant]

I have rented my current home for 13 years. I am a good tenant, I keep the house in excellent shape and care for it as if it was my own. I have never asked for anything, rent is always paid on time.

Landlord has decided to sell and I only discovered this when someone knocked on my door wanting a sneaky viewing. They showed me the listing on Rightmove, complete with pictures I was completely unaware were taken.

I am shocked and desperate not to move. I came from nothing and I've made a life for me and my children here. We have a real community around us. I'm at the point where I'll be able to buy locally within 6 months and staying in the area is so important to me.

I completely understand that legally I am not entitled to be told when the LL is selling and have no rights to ask for anything from the LL and I don't know their personal situation.

But, for the landlords out there, in these circumstances if your long term tenant asked if you would consider waiting 6 months and offered to pay more rent (currently pay £850, would offer £1150) would you?

Would it be completely unreasonable for me to ask this?

In 6 months I'd have enough to buy the house I'm in and would do so in a heartbeat.

You really hold a lot of cards here OP. Don’t feel like you’re powerless.

You can talk to your landlord about potentially purchasing the property in 6 months. If he’s not willing, tell him and the agent to take down the photos of the property dressed with your belongings. I rented for a while and the agents asked to come and take photos to put it up for sale, I said use the ones they had when we rented it. oh but it looks much nicer with your furniture. Yeah I know it does, but I paid for it so no.

You can really waste a lot of his time if you dig your heels in. And it could cost him a lot to evict you.

So don’t offer more rent. And negotiate on the price.

Landlord needed your permission for estate agent to enter property to value.

This wasn’t an inspection, nor a maintenance emergency and as you’re not in the last 2 months of your tenancy as you haven’t been issued a Section 21, you have no obligation to allow viewings if that’s what in your tenancy agreement. Even if it is, you don’t have to allow them as right to quiet enjoyment trumps what’s in the tenancy agreement and I certainly wouldn’t have ransoms invading your privacy as you don’t need a LL reference.

Definitely negotiate on price.

The law does not allow landlords to conduct viewings without the tenants permission. They must request permission and can be denied. They would then have to seek court permission, at which point they may as well just evict.

Edited to say - I can’t imagine a court granting permission?!

@Britinme please stop posting something you obviously know nothing about.

There is nothing legally enforceable that can be done if a tenant changes the locks. They only have to put the original locks back in or provide LL with keys to new locks when they leave, or LL can make a claim for cost if locksmith/new locks. I always changed locks when renting.

OP absolutely should change the locks without delay as LL has proved that he/his agents have been entering without prior permission.

I completely understand that legally I am not entitled to be told when the LL is selling
Is this true? You are going to be strongly impacted by this to say the least, and are within your rights to refuse viewings if not arranged in advance so part of that should be to have the decency to tell you!
(Though this did happen to a neighbour who was renting, they found out by the 'for sale' board going up, when contacted the landlord said they could stay till it was sold, but they left immediately to live with inlaws and he had an empty property with no rental income for several months. They did say when leaving that if he had told them in advance he was intending to sell, they may have stayed on but he was so underhand they did not trust him so left)

As a landlord - absolutely offer !

landlord could have saved themselves an estate agent fee if spoken to you first ! You could just do the sale/purchase through solicitors!!

I would contact the landlord direct and make that point. Depending on reason for sale they might be happy to wait the 12 weeks until their estate agent contract times out!

How much are you short on the deposit?

We bought our first house and didn’t have full deposit when we started the process, basically said we would by the time we needed to and the bank were fine with that. You only send the deposit when you exchange, if you’ve 80% and are confident you’ll have the rest by that point then I’d make an offer

We bought the house we were renting! Definitely make an offer even if lower than asking price and with exchange 6m from now.

It is a win win as the landlord doesn’t have to worry about the property being empty while waiting to be sold and will also save on agency fees. They will be able to leave all content as-is, no work to be done, nothing to take to the tip, etc. No chain to worry about.

As a buyer you won’t have any bad surprises (noise, boiler, electrics, neighbours, etc.) and you will likely get all the content for free or for a ridiculously low price (appliances, curtains…). And no move expenses, no admin hassle, no packing… You will get all your deposit back as well.

Landlord here and if I was ever going to sell I would 💯 give the tenant first refusal. Think it very underhand that estate agent photos of your home with your things in it were taken and published online without you knowing. I wish you the best of luck, let us all know if he says yes.

Another LL here. Are the pictures of the interior of the property on the Estate Agent website? Do they include pictures of your personal belongings? That may be a data protection issue. You can tell the Estate Agent that you didn’t give consent for the photographs and that you want any photos of the interior removed from their site.

@SpringViolet - I am a landlord but I live in the USA and my rental properties are here so I accept the laws may be different. In my state, tenants are certainly not allowed to change locks without permission from the landlord and giving the landlord a copy of the key. But from what the Shelter website says, the landlord has to be able to access the property in an emergency anyway (which is certainly the case here) so if the tenant for some reason needs to change the locks, the landlord must have to have a copy, surely?

I might add that my DH is thinking of selling the property he owns, because he needs to release the money tied up in it, and the first people he will offer it to is the family who lives there. Nor would he dream of putting photos of the interior with their possessions on the internet without their knowledge and consent.

Have you seen a mortgage advisor yet? My advice would be speak to one and see what kind of mortgage you can get with your deposit now and potentially what you would have in say 3 months time, you might actually be surprised. prior to buying my house I had saved for awhile but I was a few months short of my target deposit spoke to a mortgage adviser anyway, they told me roughly how much I could get and very quickly I found a house however it was more than the mortgage advisor had told me I could get, I again spoke to my advisor within a day or two she got me a mortgage in principle agreed, deposits aren’t paid until exchange.. the purchase took about 5 months which gave me time to save up the rest of the deposit and for the fees ect. I would say the estate agent did want proof of deposit and mortgage in principle before marking house sold subject to terms, my deposit wasn’t quite what the estate agent wanted but my mortgage advisor spoke to them and sorted it but mortgage principles last a few months and you can always just get it updated if u increase your deposit… just try not to panic and just start the ball rolling good luck!

I'd also say, do try not to antagonise your landlord by being over-aggressive with him and/or the estate agents about the latter entering the house. Be nice - yes, I know! I'm generally very much not a "be nice" woman, but it might make the difference between him thinking with a cool head - that this would be an easy and convenient sale - and him thinking with grumpiness.

I’m not sure if anyone has suggested it but you can always negotiate the percentage of the deposit. 5% is not unheard of

Why hasn't the OP come back?

Are you sure the property is even worth asking price? Are you sure you want this property and not another one in the area?

I advise you get an agent or three to do a valuation (free). Also do a proper property hunt. Maybe you'll find better.

Tbh a close call gas inspection sounds like large costs in the future... new boiler installation etc. Suggests the place is not in good repair...

Thanks for all the advice.

I suppose I think he's a decent landlord because I've had a couple of shockers in the past that were awful.

There's obviously lots of issues but he did put a new boiler in about 3 years ago.

The listing has included items I own like the dishwasher, fridge, shed. The only appliance that belongs to the LL is the oven and it's been there since before I moved in. All furniture and decor is mine. Curtains, blinds, shelving etc. is all mine as well.
I replaced all the flooring downstairs because the when I moved in the carpets were tatty and about 15years old and about 23 years old when I took them up.. I still have them stored in the garage - can I take up all of my lovely laminate flooring and put the carpets back?!

Still nobody has been in touch to say that the house is for sale. I've emailed the letting agent and not received a reply.

I am going to ask if LL will hold off but I won't offer more rent.

The asking price is in line with other properties on the street that were sold in the last year but I believe quite excessive for what it is. The other houses all were in better condition, had bigger bedrooms or whatever. My house is the worst one in a nice area. It looks okay in pictures but if you pay attention to the floor plan it's obvious it's really only a 2 bed instead of a 4 bed. The 4th bedroom can't even fit a single bed in it and the 3rd is V shaped because the stairs cut into it and is only 180cm at its widest point and the 2nd bedroom is actually the dining room downstairs. Still, all the others sold very quickly and they don't come up for sale very often.

I would buy it but ideally not at the asking price. I'm just desperate to stay here. My neighbours are amazing, it's so close to my child's specialist education school and I'm terrified of having to remove them from it. Moving to a new house in a new area and having to start a new school would just set them back so much. I love the area and if I could offer an another house nearby I would but nothing has been listed since September 2023. If I check further out but still close enough to walk to school then I am completely priced out as they're all listed for £350k plus.

Maybe I'm being foolish about wanting to stay in the area but I've been here so long.

I will book an appointment with a mortgage advisor ASAP.

"The listing has included items I own like the dishwasher, fridge, shed."

Take screenshots of the listing including the photos and description. Email the agent (for the sale, not the lettings agent) to inform them that the photos were taken without your knowledge or consent, that the listed items belong to you and are not for sale, and politely request them to remove the photos and those items from the listing.

And if you're going to put in an offer you should get valuations from several estate agents, nothing to stop you arranging this, since you live there!

Haven't RTFT but I've read your responses. Don't go into this like he's doing you a favour selling to you, you're in a really strong position here. House sales with chains are lengthy and stressful and can easily fall through. You're a hassle free buyer with no chain, and a known quantity who is highly unlikely to pull out - that's worth loads. You've also been reading up on your rights, if he's trying to sell to someone else with vacant possession, you can cause no end of problems and probably drag the whole thing out way longer than 6 months if you felt malicious. Seek mortgage advice now, find out how much you can borrow. House purchase will take a few months anyway so your deposit will grow over this time. Put in an offer based on what you can afford now, if he rejects it offer more but specify the time frame that works for you. Don't offer more rent, you shouldn't have to - my last house sale went to sealed bids, I didn't accept the highest bid because they had a chain, I took a few grand lower offer because they had no chain and were far more likely to complete the purchase. Good luck!

As you have said, the very first thing you need to do is speak to a mortgage advisor as that will determine the amount you can borrow. Without doing this you can’t really plan a way forward with this property.

What do you mean by this?

I have read every single reply and posted multiple times to thank people and answer questions but I do have other things to do during my day, children to take care of and a job that does not allow me to sit and instantly reply to posts on my MN threads.

Not to mention that in-between doing all of that I have been learning as much as I can about my rights, how evictions work etc. and putting a plan together and trying to get things in order so I am prepared for whatever is thrown my way!

Just seen your post about seeing a mortgage advisor. Most estate agent advisors charge a fee which gets hidden in the small print. L&C do totally fee free advice, it's easy as it's over the phone at times to suit you and they guide you through the whole process.

You hold all the cards.
There is no one on Earth at this present time that has more rights than a sitting Tenant in A ENGLISH PROPERTY.
If you waste time and emotions on petty things like PHOTOGRAPHS then you're barking up the wrong tree.
You need to chill. No one can do anything without spending a awful lot of time and even more £££££££££ money to evict you.
You could bend over, do as you're told, pay extra rent then move out asap, but you need not do any if these things. Landlords will and do get fined THOUSANDS for not complying with very exact legislation surrounding Property Laws. So CHILL.
Just go about your usual business and No one can do anything. You could put a huge cat among the pigeons and tell anyone who comes representing the estate agents : " I'm not moving." The LL will be monopolising your phone like a Love sick teenager.
YOU Hold ALL THE CARDS**