Ask landlord to sell us the house

[WasherWoman25]

Has anyone done this? Pro’s / Con’s etc? How did it all work out?

Landlords - would you consider it?

Roughly how much would you expect to save in fees etc on a c £250k house?

Not sure you would save anything on fees. You would still need to use a solicitor. Up to you if you think you need a surveyor if you’ve been living there but that is about £600. The landlord would save on estate agent fees but that’s generally around 1% plus VAT so not that much, and it’s arguable really whether they’d pass any of that on to you as an agent may have gotten a higher sales price.

Has the landlord indicated that they are considering selling?

Nothing to stop you making an offer if you are in a position to do so. You'd still have to pay for your own solicitor and maybe stamp duty etc. The landlord would save on estate agent fees.

We are a LL and currently thinking about selling the property. The issue is (from your perspective) is that unless you offer a really strong price, there’s not much motivation for the LL to do it. I think you could factor in 1% agents fee and 6 months no rent while they marketed into your price but it’s got to be more that the LL would expect to receive after those things to be compelling .

I don’t think you’d save anything. The landlord might save a few thousand in fees if they want to sell.

As others have said, you won’t save anything on fees as you’re buying not selling.

estate agents are about 2% so say £4k max, and they may or may not pass that onto you.

Definitely worth asking. The benefits to the landlord are no estate agent fees and not having to find another tenant if you move. Also there would be no period where the house is unoccupied so no loss of rent. You would save on removal fees.

When I say, saving - I meant the LL as to how much we could potentially negotiate with.

No, but we haven’t asked either yet.

We’ve lived here around 9 years. This was his actual property originally ( a couple of tenants before us, last ones had to be evicted after months of none paying rent). He now lives miles away and only has this house in the area. His other properties are near him. He doesn’t rate the agent he uses in this area and no longer has any ties around here. So I guess he may think about selling.

Well no one can answer that as it depends on the state of the house, what needs doing, what comes up on a survey

A few thousand probably, but if he wasn’t thinking of selling then it will actually cost them as they’ll have to pay solicitor fees too, so I’m not sure you can really negotiate unless they were going to sell now anyway.

I bought my house off my landlord last year.

I'd rented it for a year and a half.

He was a youngish man, say mid, late 20's early 30 max and had bought a dooer upper to rent, sell. I moved in as the first tenant, loved the house and offered him what I thought it was worth based on local market etc.

He accepted, all went smoothly. I had to do quite a lot of work to it as he'd made quick changes for rental but they didn't really work so ive spent a lot on top of purchase but still happy.

The only real saving (for them) is the EA fee (as long as they have not already listed it).
If you have been living there for a while you will have a good idea of the condition of the house but a survey will still be required. No moving costs to consider and no change of address.

Selling to an in-situ tennant does make things a lot easier, we almost did it a few years ago.
Our tennant was keen to buy and kept saying that we would save "a lot" on EA fees (I don't think they actually knew how much the fees were) but in return, they suggested we lower the price by ths same amount as they had paid in rent over the previous 3yrs.
Clearly we turned down this "offer" and it was only when they realised they were actually going to have to move out that they matched the asking price but in the meantime, we had accepted an offer considerably over.

Well, I’m a landlord:

I only rent out one property and it’s a big chunk of my pension so your offer would need to be pretty fab for me to consider it.
There would be no negotiation from my part because I don’t want to sell it.

you’re thinking “they should charge me less because they save on fees and can rent it to me whilst it goes through”
but the landlord could very well be thinking “they don’t have to pay for removal costs, they don’t have to move or do the hassle of redirecting post etc and I don’t want to sell” and therefore if you want it you need to pay a premium.

Definitely ask. You have nothing to lose.

I would want market price for the house if I was selling to tenants. Any rent that you paid me between offering and completing on the purchase, I would give back to you. After all, if I needed to market the house without tenants, I wouldn’t be receiving any rent.
My contract with the letting company states that I need to pay commission if I sell to existing tenants.

Oh definitely ask, you’ve lost nothing. But you might be surprised if you’re looking for a bargain.

We've sold to tenants who have wanted to buy before. We had it valued for a realistic sale and knocked a bit off as we were not paying for an agent. We've also tried to buy a house off a landlord but he said no. It's always worth asking.

Also, I still had a full survey which showed up a couple of largish potential problems so he and I went halves on those.

If the landlord hasn’t even indicated that they want to sell yet then I wouldn’t be pitching the idea to them straight off with how much discount you’d expect from them for doing so, because they aren’t going to see that as an attractive proposition. If they’re open to selling then once it’s been valued that’s when you’ll have a decent idea of whether you can negotiate on the basis that they don’t have to test the market to achieve that value and go from there.

In this scenario, it is worth asking him. Remember he may have to pay stamp duty for a replacement property, so may not be as keen to sell as you hope.

We bought our house from the landlady, and split the fees (about £1500) between us

Big difference was she wanted to sell at the point we wanted to buy.

We saved far more than her though as no moving costs etc so I think if they don't want to sell they probably want full asking price.

No harm in trying. Many landlords are wanting to sell at the moment. I'm in the process of selling a rental property and would have been delighted to get an offer from the tenants, so much less hassle all round. Having worked out a reasonable asking price, I would have shared the 'profit' from not paying EA fees. Good luck.

I’d probably just ask - “if you’d like to sell then we’d be interested in buying”

The landlord will know the pros and cons. You don’t need to explain it to them. They either are interested or not

I agree with this.
Don’t mention saving them money - they may not even want to sell so this is a moot point anyway.

Our tenant has been in ten years one child. Now has a partner who's moved in. Lovely woman. I don't know why they haven't approached us to buy seems silly to be paying rent when you have two incomes coming in.

I wouldn't accept a daft offer though.