Selling a house with tenants...

[dilbertina]

We are currently living abroad and renting out our home in the UK. When we return we want to buy a larger house so need to sell our current one. We have tenants in it until end of August.

In an ideal world it would make sense to have it on the market over the summer. Our tenants seem lovely and have been fine with estate agents coming around to appraise the house. They know we plan to sell at the end of the tenancy.

I think though, to have prospective purchasers nosing about your home is a bit different. So I was thinking about offering the tenants a rebate on the rent if they would agree to it being actively on the market with them still in there, and allowing reasonable viewings etc.

Any views on this from tenants or landlords? What would be a reasonable amount for the inconvenience do you think?

Many thanks

that would be really nice of you to do, its not standard though, we have had our home on the market twice while renting, and never got anything back for the inconvenience.

Really? Maybe I'm worrying too much about it! (and from own experience relate to the tenant more than the landlord!)

I just kind of thought if they got pissed off with it all they could be difficult with arranging viewings etc (if we get any of course!) Presumably they aren't legally obliged to co-operate to any great degree and have a right to "peaceful enjoyment" or whatever it's called....

Perhaps we'll offer them £100/month or so back to keep them on our side, it might encourage them to be helpful rather than resentful. (it would me!)

Thanks firawla.

its usually written into the agreement that the property can be marketed for the last month of the tenancy.
we were renting and had this. tbh, I was accomodating to a point but lost the plot at one point and refused any more viewings. I refused to try and keep the house perfect- it was a rented house and i had a 2 year old and 4 month old baby.
ask them, the might be accomodating!

I think it's nice to offer.

What sort of tenancy agreement on they on? Fixed term AST or rolling contract.

The last house we rented was put up for sale whilst we were still tenants. Whilst the owners were keen for us to stay until it sold, we gave our 1 month notice as soon as it went on the market. If they'd offered some sort of rent reduction (and we did ask) we would have stayed but we didn't want the hassle of viewings for however many months until it sold with no sort of compensation.

Tenants can refuse viewings, or ask for them to be restricted to a certain time etc. so if you want them to be accommodating it's worth offering them an incentive in my opinion. Especially if that means you can keep the rental income until you sell, unlike our landlords who ended up having an empty house for 6 months.

Dilbertina
What percentage of the rent is £100? I think you'd need to be refunding minimum 15% for the potential hassle they are going to be going through. Still better to have the house being lived in though as it might be on the market a long time (depending on how well you price it for sale)

£100 is around 10%. It is a fixed term contract ending at end of August. We have said we could perhaps go to a rolling contract after that if it suited them. I doubt they will want to stay long however as they will probably prefer to get settled somewhere less short-term. It would suit us more because I think it will help if the house is lived in, the rental income, although nice obviously, isn't desperately needed to pay the mortgage. So not the end of the world either way.

If it doesn't sell in 6 months or so we would need to move back in and continue trying to sell it. I will check whether the contract allows "marketing".

I think it would be reasonable for the tenants to restrict viewings to a couple of times/days per week. The house is in a sought after place, and houses don't come up very often so I think if anyone was interested they'd be prepared to wait a day or two to view, it's not like they could go and see a dozen comparable houses in the meantime...

Many thanks for your thoughts everyone.