Letting out your house?

[bathtime]

We are looking to relocate and might need to rent and let our property out, but as we would also want to sell it, I don't want to commit to a 6 months letting.

I'm sure there are lots of people who would want to rent a house shorter term, and we're in a good catchment area. But I can't see how to do it.
Foxtons seem to be the only agent who do short term lettings. When I've looked online I can only see info on Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements which have to be 6 months.
So, to anyone who knows about this stuff, how could you let your property out for less than 6 months in a way which is legally ok, safe for us and the tenant?

Or I was thinking we could do it as a lodger arrangement as my OH could then stay there one night a week, but would that meet the terms of it being our residence?

There's loads of tenancy info on the web, but I can't seem to find answers to my questions!!
many thanks for any advice!!

ASTs that you mentioned have to be at leat 6 months. You could rent it out as an Assured Tenancy but very few landlords do this as it is harder to evict the tenants. To evict them under a standard Assured Tenancy you need an actual reason, as specified in the legislation. This differs from a AST where the landlord does not need any reason to evict.

However, I think that wanting to sell is classed as a legitimate reason (know more about Scots Law than English).

Are you intending on having it for sale whilst the tenants are living there? If you are this could cause big problems and may not be possible worth your while.

Thanks for that. I didn't know about Assured Tenancies!
One of the reasons I'd be tempted to do short lets is that you could put it on the market after 2 months, vacant, rather than having to wait for the 6 months to be up.

I don't know how people rent it out and then sell, it seems so complicated!

You can rent it privately but be sure to take references/credit checks etc. A lot of people use Gumtree to advertise or a private ad in the local paper.

I think that if you are thinking of selling in the next 6 months it might not be worth letting - you need certain gas safety certificates, inventories etc. Surely 6 month tenancy would be fine - put on the market after 4 months - can't believe you would find buyer and complete in shorter than two months - and anyway you make plain to potential seller that you cannot complete before x date - which is what we did.

Thanks! Was it not a bit complicated putting it on the market after 4 months? ie you don't get a chance to tart it up a bit when your tenants are in there? Can you exchange contracts when they're still in situ?

If you have sitting tenants in a property you are trying to sell the property is not being sold as 'vacant'. This can cause a lot of legal problems.

For one thing your tenants are under no obligation to allow viewings.

If you exchanged contracts with sitting tenants without telling the buyer you would be committing fraud.