Landlord selling, but won’t sell to me

[Flora73]

After 11 months in the house, my landlord has issued a section 21, my contract rather conveniently contained a break clause so he can do this earlier than the 12 month mark.

I have a mortgage in principle, I’ve been looking for somewhere to buy but he has rejected this and said I still have to leave as they want to maximise the sale price. He has even said that I move out and he will let me know which agent it is on with so I can purchase it that way. It just seems utterly bonkers.

And before anyone lays into me I am fully aware that it is his house and he can do what he likes, and I have no rights, but I can’t work out why he won’t sell to me. We’ve had a good relationship to date with no issues.

Can anyone thing of reasons why this would be?

Why all the "greed" and "he's wrong" "he's stupid" Is it to make the OP feel better? He owns the property and has his reasons. For all we or the OP know he needs an operation and needs to pay for it privately, he has to pay for a loved one's care, he wants to make a massive contribution to a charity.....we have no idea so lets stick to the facts?

Do houses in the area often sell for above asking? That would be another factor. I mean if the house is “worth” £300k but he thinks he can get £320k then he won’t care about £5-10k lost rent or 3-5k for an estate agent. Your best bet is to ask him to get the property valued - and then - if properties typically go over asking, offer him a little bit over that (while also stating that he’ll likely be saving an additional eg 5k on otherwise lost rent + a few k on estate agents. If you really want it you have to come at it from his angle.

Well if he puts it on the open market and more than one buyer is interested he could reap the rewards of a bidding war.

So when it's listed make your offer and see what happens

He wants to pretend to live there and reduce his capital gains tax bill. He can’t easily do that with you there

Just to cheer you up op we rentef and wanted to buy. Offer declined.
We were in situ during the viewings and another offer was made. After we left the buyer sent a further surveyor and they down graded their offer by £25k as they lifted carpets etc. He was fuming and trued to claim damages after the house had been signed off as clean tidy etc.
Most property is sticking so he may be doubly bitten.

He is probably going into an arrangement with another LL so they can both mitigate their capital gains tax bill.

They will likely sell to each other until they have both reached their thresholds and then swap back.

This way they can keep their respective incomes without paying mad tax bills.

He may well have done already, and the difference might be bigger than you think since very few people except other investors will want a tenanted property

He could even have heard about tenants who allow viewings and tell potential buyers about non-existent issues with the place in order to carry on living there, and while I'm obviously not saying you're one of them he may want to avoid the risk by ensuring a "clean" sale

From a business POV - and that's what this is - it's very sensible of him

Why all the "greed" and "he's wrong" "he's stupid" Is it to make the OP feel better? He owns the property and has his reasons

Edited to add because it's Mumsnet, @godmum56, and landlords are the devil incarnate to many on here

there's always one

He might be concerned that you would damage the place in an attempt to drive the price down.

Renters usually don’t look after things very well, equally landlords put cheap finishes and furniture into properties, because they don’t want to see something nice poorly looked after. Your landlord is going to do it up and sell for the done price vs. undone price.

I'm wondering why you think you have no rights. You do.

First off he sounds like a bit of a amateur LL and as a result will get things wrong. Many LL's don't issue the S21 correctly. That there's missing paperwork, or not refunding you deposit in full before issuing it or not giving enough notice. If you think any of those things haven't happened then wait until the last day when you're supposed to move out and then send him a message to say "BTW you didn't do this, that, whatever and so the S21 isn't valid." He'll have to rectify whatever the problem is and then reissue the notice.

Obviously this doesn't necessarily make things easier for you to buy the place but it does give you more time to find where you want to move to. To keep things friendly you might keep him informed of where you are in your purchase of another place so that he can relax and know that you'll be moving out as soon as is convenient for YOU. Not him.

Don't feel pressured to move before you are ready to go, don't move out unless he makes it worth your while.

For more info google Shelter. Lots of good advice on their website.

If he sold to you at a realistic price, he would save several thousand pounds on estate agents’ fees, plus the cost of leaving the house empty for probably 3-6 months: lost rent, plus the bills he’ll need to pay himself.

So it sounds like blind greed, OP. He’s hoping for an unrealistic price, and may well end up having to accept less.

If he does see sense and sell to you, I would get a lawyer to do the conveyancing, and have a structural survey or a house buyer’s report done, as there may be things you don’t know about the condition of the building, possible leasehold etc.

My former landlord said he was selling, only to rent it out at much higher rates as soon as I left.

Worked out well for me, as I'm in my own place that suits me more now, but that might be what's actually going on...

He’s shown that he’s not interested in playing fair.

In your shoes, I’d stay put until he gets an eviction notice via the courts and in the meantime, keep looking for a suitable property yo buy.

My husband and I went through something similar. We ended up finding a short term rental which served us well as we later found a wonderful property with no chain so could proceed very quickly.

The property we left didn’t sell for another 4 months according to rightmove. And our landlord was most disgruntled to find out that we weren’t liable for the council tax AFTER we left: he was convinced we had to pay for the remaining tax year 🤣🤣🤣

The original message was in relation to wanting more rent from the house. I suggested that if that was the case then I would pay more to be able to stay.

Remember you dont have to leave at his say so. If you want to get stubborn he'll have a long and expensive process getting rid of you.

This has crossed my mind but I really don’t want to make things unpleasant. I’m probably not in the right position now to buy it, but in 3-4 months time I would be.

I asked for a 3 month extension on the S21 and that was rejected as well.

It seems daft to insist that you leave when you could potentially be a buyer. I understand he doesn't want to market the house with a tenant in situ, but in this marker he's hardly going to get people going into a bidding war, so there is no real benefit to marketing it more widely if you are prepared to pay him a price that's close to what he wants to market it at.

He may as well just tell you what the house has been valued at and what he hopes to get for it, and you can either make him a great offer to keep it off the market, or move out and take your chances up against other people if you think he's asking too much. But the problem with that is that you may end up having to take a 6 month tenancy on somewhere else, unless you can stay with family for a while.

I can't understand his reluctance to progress the idea of selling to you. It makes no sense. It's an instant buyer with no uncertainty, no rental void, he won't be liable for council tax and maintaining the garden and insuring it as an empty property etc, plus he'll save himself agent's fees. It seems nuts to not explore this option first.

Are you sure he genuinely intends to sell it? If you are paying significantly less rent than he could get if he re-let it, he may just want to get you out so that he can spruce up the house and let it for much more. Then he'll claim a 'change of circumstances' when it never appears on the market.

I’m glad I posted this question, it’s been so helpful seeing the array of responses and it’s really made me think about whether this is the house that I would buy if I wasn’t in this position.

it’s in immaculate condition and I’ve looked after it and spent my own time and money on it. It’s not big, a 3 bedroom cottage. It would probably be around 300k although he said when it was last valued it was 350k.

If you refuse to leave when you've been given perfectly reasonable notice to do so then that will affect your ability to rent somewhere else, should you need to. Don't make your landlord go through an expensive and stressful eviction process just on some sort of principle. It's not risk free. Other private landlords won't want to touch you with a bargepole.

I agree! It does seem daft. But when I have tried to push him on the subject he shuts down and says he’s under no obligation to tell me what is going on and despite offering me a month or 2 extra (when he told me about the section 21), he has now gone back on that as well.

And when I suggested paying more rent he declined saying I’m probably paying more than I should be anyway.

Ok his reluctance to be straight with you and the weirdness of the situation means there is possibly something else going on. It's possibly because he wants it to move into himself because he plans to leave his partner but doesn't want to openly say this yet because his partner doesn't even know. Or some similar type of personal scenario which he's reluctant to discuss but it's important to him to do this in what seems like a counter productive way to everyone else.

It's frustrating but unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it.

Sorry that was a bit garbled and repetitive. Hope it made sense.