Can I make our tenancy more secure?

[ButterPie]

I love my house so much, it is a few doors down from the ILs (who are in the house DP grew up in), is just the right size, decorated exactly to our taste, has outdoor space for the DDs to play in, has a lovely range cooker, real wood floors/doors/kitchen worktops, belfast sink, lots of light, generally our dream house and such a breath of fresh air after years of renting damp overpriced woodchipped nightmares with harrassing landlords.

I am terrified that the landlord will chuck us out. We are pretty much model tenants, look after the house, pay the rent on time, friends with the neighbours and so on, but it is nearly a year since we moved in and I am so scared that the landlord will decide to sell up or something. My only consolation is that a house in the street has been up for sale the entire time we have been here and so obviously the housing market isn't so good round here.

We rent through an agency, if that is relevant. How likely is it that the landlord would chuck us out and is there any way I can make us more secure?

This is the downside of renting, they only need to legally give you 2 months notice, there's nothing you can do.

You could ask to sign a one year fixed term tenancy next time it renews?

There is a way of changing your tenancy agreement into a Deed which means you are fixed for three years but it is expensive to do and changes all sorts of other rites.

Don't suppose there is any way you ask for first refusal if they were thinking of selling?

Was it an investment property or was it their home?

It was their home, you can tell it was really loved and my ILs knew them vaguely. They emigrated to America, and have apparently tried to sell in the past with no luck.

There is no way we would get a mortgage due to both having a bit of a daft past, all calmed down now obv. ILs had to sign as guarantors for us to rent this place. We would buy it like a shot if we could.

This is the first house (since my childhood home that we left when I was 11) that I have really loved, and DD1 can clearly tell she is more secure here.