Renting house back from buyer for a brief period

[ParadigmGiraffe]

Buyer is FTB living at home, seems to be fairly relaxed so far about moving dates etc. We're moving into a house which would benefit from a re-fresh. Having a couple of weeks to get painters and decoraters in while its empty would be great.

Anyone had any experience of renting house back for a couple of weeks or a month?

Would you do it if asked?

No I wouldn’t. It could lead to all sorts of problems. Getting a rental contract drawn up for a couple of weeks!

Stay in an AirBnb or a hotel or with friend. Or just move in and camp out in the house like everyone else does.

Yes you can. Usually the estate agent will come up with the rental agreement for the solicitors to review. Then it can be part of the sale. But the buyer has to arrange it all not the seller and if they can’t afford to pay for a fully managed service then many solicitors will advise them to say no.

If your buyer is taking a mortgage the lender may not allow the property to be rented.

I also suspect your buyer's solicitor would advise against it.

If I was the buyer there is no way I would allow this. Don't even ask.

The buyer's solicitor will strongly advise against this.

We thought about it during our last move but then our solicitor pointer out that the buyers mortgage wasn't a BTL one, we'd need buildings insurance, plus drawing up a contract etc mean it just wasn't doable. If there's no mortgage involved maybe it's ok?

Good point I hadn't thought about the mortgage angle....It's a bit of a pain as it would all be much easier without us in it!

Is the property you are buying currently vacant?

Mortgage lenders won't like this at all. I'd air bnb if I were you. Too many complexities v a simpler solution from a legal/mortgage perspective.

Property we are buying is vacant.

Why not approach the vendor of the property you wish to buy to see if they may allow you access between exchange and completion to give it a bit of a refresh.

That's probably a simpler thing to sort out than renting back from the person you are selling to.

I considered this from other end (I was the buyer) but was advised against it by my solicitor. Mortgage considerations aside she said it would have to be a standard six month rental with early break clause. But she asked what would happen if the tenants (sellers) didn’t move out? I think they were buying a new build which wasn’t finished. Anyway nice sounding and I actually did let sellers do this on another property but it was a buy to let flat anyway - the sellers were just my first tenants.

We did this sort of. Let the people we were buying from stay till their home use was ready after we had completed. They had built a house in the garden so were our neighbours. We were living overseas and not moving back straight away. They offered to rent a house nearby but it seemed daft to us so we let them stay until their house was finished. We did have a legal agreement drawn up and they paid a peppercorn rent.

Our circumstances were unusual though.

It worked well in our case and after they had moved out we came to stay in our house for three weeks and they left us lots of kitchen equipment, some furniture etc and a tv to use while we were there. We then used the builder who had built their new house to renovate ours. Made life easier for us all really.

Last year I was a buyer who let the seller rent the place from me for 2 months as they were not ready to move in to their new place. The solicitor who did the purchase drew up a short term rental agreement and included some additional clauses re leaving the place in the condition it was found, who would be responsible of utilities and damages etc. Before the rental started we took photos of everything and noted down all damages and the seller paid 2 months rent plus deposit. My mortgage didnt't cover buy to let but my solicitor wasn't too concerned, said the banks have got better things to do than persue someone who is only renting out for a few weeks. I had a very good experience and the seller even moved out early and let me start moving in boxes while he was still there. For me it turned out well but there is a lot that could go wrong. Definitely speak to a solicitor before making a decision.

The buyer's father knows our family. We aren't all complete strangers. It's a private sale. He's a lawyer! Though not a property lawyer. So he might be willing to take a chance on us.

The sellers have moved out so we might ask them first as that seems a little bit easier if they are amenable. Again, their estate agents know us, so might make a difference if they vouch for us. So we could get access to paint etc at a suitable point in the process prior to completion.

My friends did this but it was for about 6mths while their new house got a total refurb. And the buyer let them stay for FREE. Couldn’t believe it myself but they seem to get good luck in their life

no no no no no NO NO

You need vacant possession as a condition of a resi mortgage.

No I wouldn't even consider it.was hard enough to get our vendor sout of their house when it was vacant possession let alone if there was sitting tenants!