AIBU to stick with current buyer rather than sell to tenants?

[Whotosellto]

I’m a landlord who currently selling a house. The tenants gave notice months ago and are due to move out soon. I received an offer on the house at asking price about 6 weeks ago which I’ve accepted. The tenants are now saying they would like to buy the house after the house they were buying fell through. They’re a family with 2 children and another baby on the way. They can’t match the offer already accepted, they’ve offered £10k less. They said they’re desperate. They’ve been ok tenants although they’ve missed rent a few times.

Would you stick with the existing buyer or accept the offer from the existing tenants? Would you feel more obligated to your tenants of a few years or to the buyer we have accepted an offer from already? Obviously the tenants could now refuse to move and cause issues which we need to bear in mind and they’ve offered less but we’ll save some costs by selling to the current tenants,
probably not £10k though.

Im thinking of sticking with the buyer we already have. AIBU?

Surely the tenants will just stay there with the new landlord

It depends, do they have all ducks in a row - mortgage sorted etc?

They said they’re desperate. They’ve been ok tenants although they’ve missed rent a few times. This would worry me - have they definitely been accepted for a mortgage?

But as others have mentioned, if you’re selling on the assumption that the tenants will have left by then, this might now be a worry. Your other buyer might not wait around forever for you to evict the tenants, who are unlikely to want to leave now.

Having sold to tenants previously the onerous paperwork is generally much reduced as they are deemed to already know the property, this was super useful in our position. They didn’t even need to have a survey and their bank was very supportive.

@Whotosellto id sell to the tenants

We likely could have marketed it for more given a similar property over the road came up during the sale process £60k higher. Interestingly it remains unsold 7 months later now just £20k higher.

I can think of ten thousand reasons not to sell to them.

You don't owe tenants a 10k price cut, and the moral thing to do is to honour the original deal.

There is no way I'd be willing to drop 10k

madness that there's people on here who'd gift 10k effectively to people who already have shown themselves up as unreliable. It's a terrible idea and you should stick to the original sale.

Existing buyer. It’s not personal, it’s business. I say that as a former private tenant of 19 years of many properties which were sold from under me!

Don’t drop, stick with the current buyer. I Would be a bit worried that the tenants will refuse to move out until bailiffs.

Of course I would. Their finances aren’t your problem.

Honestly, I’d sell to tenants in this situation. But it’s your house.

If they wanted your house yours is the one they'd have offered on in the first place, there is a good chance they're just offering to buy time for them to find a house they really want before they pull out and you need to start all over again. If the original offer is proceeding I wouldn't mess around a committed buyer for one who isn't.

All these people saying they would sell to the tenants, I guarantee you they wouldn't when it actually came to it!

Rental payments aren't on your credit file.

I would.

On what basis?

The right thing for which party?
The buyer who has instructed solicitors? Organised a mortgage? Paid for searches? Paid for a survey?
It's not like the OP was kicking the tenants out. They, gave notice.

A landlord that can rent the house out to another family who can’t afford to buy?

They are on your finance history and do make a difference to your mortgage offer

I think selling to another landlord is icky when you have tenants who want to buy in almost any situation… except this one. They didn’t want the house and don’t want to pay market rates and I am guessing don’t actually have the money if they missed their rent payments regularly. I hate the idea of profiting off a young family like this but I don’t think they’ll actually buy it anyway. I also don’t think they’ll move out on the day they said for what it’s worth.

All else being equal, I'd probably sell to the tenants. But that's not the situation you're in. You've already agreed to sell to someone else. If you believe in keeping your word I don't see how this is even an issue.

If the prospective buyer let me down in some way then I'd feel free to consider the tenats, but until then, no.

As an aside, if the tenants were found through an agency then check your agreement with the agency carefully. You may find you have agreed to pay them a fee if you sell to anyone they introduced, whether as a buyer or a tenant.

Rental payments generally aren’t reported anywhere unless you’ve signed up to a rent reporting scheme yourself. Private landlords don't report them as there’s no mechanism for them to do so.

Obviously if arrears became serious enough to result in court action/CCJ that would be reported.