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.

Definitely ask: I have to sell my rental and I feel so awful about making my tenants homeless. I would love it if my tenants wanted to buy. I would give them a good price.

I’m a landlady and I absolutely would do this for my tenant. I’d even take the house off the market and knock off the estate agents and any other cost for them. I think it would be a bit unreasonable to charge you extra rent for a few months, it could take that long to sell anyway. I’d ask if I was you, you’ve nothing to lose. I think as your a long term tenant, your landlord has been unreasonable to not tell you he was selling!

Landlord here and another one saying talk to your landlord. It depends entirely on why they're selling and how long they need. I feel for you finding out this way-I know I'm not legally obliged to let tenants know if I'm selling but I always would. Just common courtesy IMO.

This happened to me as a landlord. I let the tenant purchase at below market valuation and with all furniture. It saved me agent fees but most of all, she’d built her home there and it felt fair.

Yes, he must do, although I still haven't heard from him or our letting agent.

I'm assuming an eviction notice will be coming my way on Monday because I'm being difficult now.

I told the estate agent via email that I will not be allowing viewings right now and to remove all the pictures that were taken without my consent and to correct the listing. They called me 7 times in 3 hours today while I was at work! I couldn't answer and they didn't leave a message.

I won't judge him for saying no to selling to me but I am judging him for being so sneaky and shitty.

I don't have any family to loan me money for a deposit.

No harm in asking and landlord would have to give you notice? What for tenancy say?

We bought off our landlord. He offered to reduce our rent by half once we started conveyancing because he was keen to complete asap. Have a discussion with your landlord, you never know what solution you could reach together, especially in the current market.

People who are saying that the OP does not have to allow viewings - this may not be correct. The landlord might have reserved this right in the tenancy agreement. You need to read your tenancy agreement to see what it says.

Not read the full thread but there are tenant mortgages if no one has mentioned them
kind of a rent to buy?

As a landlady, I have a plan to sell my houses over the next 5 yrs, I would always approach the tenant first and I have recently offered a tenant the opportunity to buy, in 5 years at market rate and I will give them a full refund of the last years rent so they can make a deposit. This gives them plenty of advanced notice to save. This may sound generous but in reality it enables (1) smooth transfer (2) avoids mortgage penalties (3) avoids sale commission (4) I don’t have to pay tax on last years income (5) and a legal agreement makes them responsible for maintenance in the last year before sale.

finally, the tenant can change their mind about buying the house until the contracts are exchanged, with the understanding that the house will be sold at that point.

Benefits… i get my property sold in my preferred timeline and the tenant gets a property they want and help towards the deposit. PS The house valuation is done professionally.

I wish you were my land lady!

It is odd that your landlord has not discussed this with you. However let’s just assume it’s bad communication and that he assumes you’re not interested in buying. Why don’t you simply contact him in writing and express an interest in purchasing the property and request a meeting to discuss a proposal that could benefit you both. Ensure any valuation is professionally undertaken and has comps as a comparison.

You may be zble ho have them tzken down.

Contact Rightmove and see if they can do anything to help. Also speak to CAB to find out if that was legal.

The landlord may have to sell due to rise in mortgage rates. I’ve just sold my flat and to renew the mortgage on a buy to let then mortgage company wanted evidence that the tenants were paying £2200!!! They were paying £1600 currently. I couldn’t justify that. And couldn’t legally do that to them. So no option but to sell.

I'm a landlady & I'd definitely say yes because in reality it will take that long to sell anyway, no reason it can't go on the market with a view to complete in 6 months time due to tenant situation. Buyers might be ok with that too.

I'm a LL, with multiple properties.
Be honest with your LL, the worst they can do is say no and you're in the same position... and a guaranteed buyer in 6months might sweeten them considerably and mean it is financially viable for them!

I've had some seriously awful estate agents act for me in the past, so with this in mind I wonder if it's the agents being sneaky, rather than the landlord. Do you have contact details to deal with your LL directly? I'd suggest approaching them directly with your offer & cut out the Chinese whispers with a vested interest!

As a previous poster said, they may not have a choice but to sell or be able to wait 6 months, but there's no harm asking! When I was looking to sell my flat I would've been delighted if my tenants wanted to buy. I was worried about it being empty & not being able to pay the mortgage whilst I was waiting for it to sell, as I did tell my tenants & they moved out.

I then let it on a short term basis (fully disclosed when I rented it) & the tw*ts refused to move out when I finally found a buyer some months later. They apparently had every legal right to stay put & I couldn't do anything about it (nearly bankrupted me).

Both you & the LL can obviously make life difficult for each other, so seems sensible to me to have a conversation & see if you can negotiate something mutually beneficial.

We had a recent experience of our landlord selling the property. (we had no intention of buying the place though but I thought legally they have to offer it to the tenant first as we had lived in another rental before where the agent asked us if we wanted to buy and explained that it’s a legal procedure to ask the tenants - I might be wrong)

The real estate agents were so sneaky, they would show up unannounced and beg us to let them in - I always say no. Legally I believe they have to give you minimum 24-48hour notice so whilst we didn’t reject all viewings but those that didn’t meet the criteria we always said no. We also specified times they could see eg after 5pm on certain weekdays only and Sat morning only and rejected any request for times that didn’t suit us.

We were nice at the beginning when the agents begged us to let people view cos “the client comes from afar and could only see it that day” but they just took advantage of us as it kept on happening and we got messages that were downright rude “we are coming to see your flat today at 130pm” without asking and finally I spoke to the real estate manager and told them it’s not on and it stopped. We also declined viewings if they didn’t suit us even though they met the “criteria”. I don’t think you can blanket block all viewings and there is nothing they can do if you do block some as you have the right for quiet enjoyment as a tenant.

An offer was made eventually which we got informed of at the time however we didn’t get kicked out until they gave us notice about 3-4 months later - we were given 2 months notice at that point (and tried to encourage us to leave earlier but legally they couldn’t force us to)

There is definitely something in it for the landlord if you do decide to make an offer as he can save on agency fees and it’s pretty much guarantee you won’t pull out and settlement takes ages anyway to go through the surveys etc got nothing to lose by asking! 6 months isn’t that long - my friend took 10months to settle due to people in the chain pulling out.

7 times in 3 hours! At least you have got their attention.

They may be hoping to talk you around so they can avoid telling the landlord that they have annoyed you. If I was the estate agent I would want to avoid bringing any problems to the LL’s attention for as long as possible.

If you speak to them, make sure that they have told the landlord. You could ask for the LL to contact you directly to discuss how to proceed. You can then suss out their plans and consider when to make an offer.

I’m a landlord, if I was planning to sell I would give the current tenants the opportunity to consider whether they could buy before putting it on the market. If they could prove they could afford it in 6 month I’d be prepared to wait too.

Speak to you landlord and explain, the worse they can say is no.

Yes and I think the reason they didn’t tell you is they don’t want to risk you moving in case they don’t get good offers right away. If I were you I would offer a down payment rather than more monthly amount ir try to get a lease to own, if possible. Show them you are financially serious and they may be happy to work with you but I wouldn’t expect th m to take less than fair market value

Landlord here 🙋
I thought you were gonna ask if you could buy the house, when they've no intention of selling, and I'd have said you were being cheeky 🤭
But what you're proposing, I'd agree to if I were selling. And I agree, approach them without the offer of additional rent. If I'd a long term tenant who had been a good tenant, I'd want to help them out, and would be happy to sell to them moreso than a randomer.
Go for it, what have you to loose?

I am a landlord and would never dream of listing my property for sale without my tenants’ knowledge and I would be delighted if they offered to buy it from me

It's worth asking, we were in a similar situation a year and a bit ago.
But we couldn't get a mortgage, our landlord told us, he was selling and gave us first dibs to buy. So it's worth asking.
It can take up to 6 months to complete, or house sold pretty quickly.
But it was a bargain and had a lot of potential, it needed doing up and would have been worth more done up than it was sold for.
Good luck, it was very stressful and a major shock. Plus the rental market is mental and houses were letting out before they got a sign up to say To Let.

Could you buy where you are living in 6 months?