Sitting tenant

[EthelHornsby]

Need some advice from other landlords - I have a property which I inherited which is let. I now need to sell the property and have served notice on the tenant, but he is unwilling to leave. The letting agents have suggested I could sell with him as a sitting tenant, but I am not sure how easy this is. Evicting him would be expensive and time consuming, but would this be more or less expensive/ time consuming than not being able to sell with vacant possession?

It depends on the area, and how much he is paying. I live near a university and sitting tenants puts tens of thousands on top of the price of houses

Not a university area - run-down ex-industrial area, low rents. Interesting, though. His rent-paying varies - tends to improve when I suggest he leaves. Currently paying, but still in arrears

Enlist the rental agents help to find him somewhere else and offer to help with moving costs if he will vacate by a certain date.
If that doesn't look like it will work start eviction proceedings.
Your buyers can't get a mortgage with a sitting tenant so it limits your purchasers to cash buyers only who will likely want a bargain.

Just evict him. He's a poor payer so not the sort of sitting tenant anyone would want.

At least you haven't been flamed (yet) for selling your house when it is tenanted. You drastically reduce your market if you are selling only to investors plus if he is a poor payer then he's not going to be an appealing tenant. I would look at giving him an incentive to move.

wowfudge I’m awaiting that!

I think it’s only going to appeal to BTL in that area. It’s basically an auction property, and worth less than I have spent on it, apparently . He is not interested in moving out at all.

if he has been there long enough to be before AST you have a big problem. Otherwise the legal costs for eviction are around £600, double or more
if you use one of the three or four legal firms that know what they are doing. rent will probably stop - he might as well,in practice it makes no difference.

hope you have all the paperwork right. if the epc is below E you must evict.anyway.

Offer to sell it to him ?

Thank you all - missed the deleted message!
I am going to try and sell it with him in it - sounds like eviction could take months

it can and does - the principle is laudable but takes no account of tenant breach. sec 8 is easily dodged so it has to be sec 21.b

another option is bribery - pay him to go.