Vendor’s tenants refusing to leave

[Plancina]

Just posting for a rant/wild hope of any advice. We have been in process of buying a really lovely house that we totally fell in love with and have laid over £1000 for survey fees, solicitor fees and a survey. It was marketed as no chain but has a private tenant in it who was supposed to move out on the 5th July. The tenant is now refusing to leave - they own their own home but it is having work done on it and they aren’t willing to move into alternative rental accommodation until their home is finished. They are ignoring all requests from their landlord to leave and insisting they will stay there until their house is ready, they won’t give a timeline for this.
Our lease is up in two months and we’d have to commit to a 6 month lease at least to stay here. We are so upset and annoyed - can’t believe how selfish these people are being. The vendor is also annoyed as they don’t want to lose the sale and they had promised their son a portion of the proceeds to buy his first home and now he is going to lose that house also.
Our solicitor says it could take a year to evict them.

Even throughout court proceedings the tenants have to pay the rent, therefore the tenancy has not ended until eviction.

@Bells3032 are you being deliberately obtuse? Or are you genuinely hard of reading/thinking?

When you sign a tenancy both the landlord and the tenant make an agreement they will move in on this date and out on that date if a new agreement is not put in place.

The landlord has done everything correctly. Not only did he wait for the tenancy to lapse before exchange date he also issued the s21 long before he needed to. A s21 isn't for the tenants but more to prove to the court.

So the tenant signed a legally binding agreement that there occupation of a property will end on a particular date and have now broken that legally binding agreement. The only reason that tenancy does not end of that date is because they know it will be a long and expensive process to enforce a legal agreement that they happily signed to agree too. They have cost their landlord and the op significant financial and emotional investment and have only pipped up now that it is an issue and have refused to be reasonable to either give a rough estimate of timelines or move with all expenses being met by the current landlord.

The amount of landlord bashing on this site I find appalling. It's no wonder its a struggle to find decent landlords when everything is on the tenants side and there is little to no benefits to being a landlord when profit margins have been cut significantly and you get demonised all the time whilst taking huge financial risks.

*their

Regardless of what you think is right Bells, you are incorrect to say it's illegal to stay on past the S21 date. Because, legally, it's not. Yes, its annoying, inconvenient, detrimental to the sale, but IT'S NOT ILLEGAL.

@Bells3032 The tenant has not broken the agreement legally. The tenancy does not end until the tenant leaves or a court ends it

So many landlords take a similarly ill-informed stance as yourself and that’s why they end up making mistakes or costing themselves money

First time I learned as a LL was that there are only two ways to end a tenancy - the tenant leaving or a court order.

The tenants are not illegally in the property

I really don't understand the sympathy for the tenants. They were given notice and now they're over staying because they can and because it would be inconvenient to move twice while their own home is renovated. Inconvenient.

For those enjoying a bit of speculation about them ending up homeless and slating the vendor, we don't know why the vendor needs to sell. We don't know why they ended up with a property to rent out in the first place.

All we know is the tenants have decided to push things to the legal limits which is pretty unpleasant behaviour, but not illegal, apparently. And the OP's solicitor may or may not have been clear enough on the risks of trying to buy a property with sitting tenants.

I agree with @Lochroy. I'm quite surprised at the number of people on here championing these particular tenants. No, they're not illegally in the property, but nor are they right to remain when it's no longer for rent and all notice has been served correctly and in plenty of time. If they go to court, and the situation is as the OP has described it, I'm absolutely sure that they'll be ordered to leave (or forcibly evicted if they stay). I think most people on this thread would agree. So objectively they're not in the right. The problem is the court system takes so long and I'm sure they're planning to be long gone before the bailiffs come knocking.
The laws that were set up to protect vulnerable tenants were not established for the benefit of people who can't be bothered with the hassle of moving twice to temporary rented accommodation while their own home is being extensively renovated. They're taking advantage.

The tenant has not broken the agreement legally. The tenancy does not end until the tenant leaves or a court ends it

So what your saying is that a signed contract means nothing if you don’t have to leave on the date you said you would.

No wonder landlords are turning their properties into holiday/very short term rentals. You get your money upfront and you can forcibly evict someone who goes over their contract by a few hours. And the cost of cleaning is covered.

That's what the law says @Oliversmumsarmy.

If the contract contained a clause promising vacant possession on completion (which almost all do) the vendor is in breach and OP's recourse is against them.

If it didn't, the solicitor / conveyancer has been negligent and OP should go after them.

Why are people so determined to bash the tenants who are doing nothing wrong, but not the vendors or OP's solicitors?

Beats me. The tenants are as blameless as the putative purchaser. The vendor and, to a degree, the solicitor are culpable for this almighty mess.

As for entitlement - surely expecting someone else to move twice for your convenience, while refusing to contemplate it yourself, is also entitlement?

@LarryTheLurker

If the contract contained a clause promising vacant possession on completion (which almost all do) the vendor is in breach and OP's recourse is against them.

If it didn't, the solicitor / conveyancer has been negligent and OP should go after them.

They haven’t exchanged. There isn’t a contract for the purchase.

@Oliversmumsarmy

The tenant has not broken the agreement legally. The tenancy does not end until the tenant leaves or a court ends it

So what your saying is that a signed contract means nothing if you don’t have to leave on the date you said you would.

No wonder landlords are turning their properties into holiday/very short term rentals. You get your money upfront and you can forcibly evict someone who goes over their contract by a few hours. And the cost of cleaning is covered.

Landlords who take the time to learn how things work know this is the case. People who are turning their properties into holiday rentals have different priorities to those who rent out long term.

It's a pain in the arse when you have to go down the court road to get someone out, but it's part of being a landlord. It's a risk you take.

If I wanted to sell my rental I have three choices -
Serve notice, wait until the tenant leaves then sell - the risk of that is the void period between the tenant leaving and me selling where I'd get no rent
Sell with a sitting tenant - risk with that is that there is a much smaller market of buyers
Market the house, issue notice, and hope that the tenants leaving and the sale match date wise - the risk is as the OP has shown (and also the risk of a last minute sale fail meaning I lose both sale and tenant)

Those are the options. The moment I accepted tenants those were my options. I've been happily taking the tenants money every month knowing that to end the tenancy those are my legal options. You can't have it all ways. Needing to evict a tenant is simply one of the risks you take when you chose to take their money every month

And it's still much less hassle than weekly cleaning/checking in/checking out palaver that comes from a holiday let imo. That's why I do that. Other people make other choices.

Once you make your choice you can't demand the law is changed to suit you

Surely the tenancy is a contract between the tenant and the owner of the property?

The OP hasn't written an agreement so it's moot.

She's the new owner, now. She choses who lives in the property. Tenant can take it up with the person he has the contract with.

She's the new owner, now

No she’s not. She’s very wisely walked away and let the current owner, who concocted the mess, to sort it out.

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon

Surely the tenancy is a contract between the tenant and the owner of the property?

The OP hasn't written an agreement so it's moot.

She's the new owner, now. She choses who lives in the property. Tenant can take it up with the person he has the contract with.

The OP has walked away from the sale

However, if she had gone through with it then it would very much have been her problem.

You still can't just change the locks or, as was suggested earlier, cut off the utilities, if you buy a house with a tenant still in situ. It's why a solicitor will never hand over your money until you have vacant possession

Ah, sorry. I read most of the thread yesterday but hadn't caught up.

Think the OP has done the right thing.

Bells3032

Good job you're not a housing lawyer.

@ Lyralalala
I agree with you and others who say the landlord was unwise not to have vacant possession before selling. Why didnt he? Maybe he was greedy, maybe he couldn't afford not to, maybe he suddenly needed to sell quickly for some reason, maybe he was naive? It's not clear.
I don't understand why others are saying the "tenants are blameless" though. I think they're behaving with a distinct lack of integrity.

The amount of misconceptions and confusing information in this thread is a great demonstration of why a tenant can't be evicted without going through the courts!

Keep in mind that the OP only has second-hand information. The section 21 notice might not have been issued correctly. It might be invalid if the landlord has failed to meet various legal obligations.

I think they're behaving with a distinct lack of integrity

Because they’re refusing to be doormats and just roll over for everyone else’s convenience? If anyone’s behaved with lack of integrity, it’s the vendor.

if its not been mentioned here (11 pages!)
there is one thing the LL can offer
basically he is allowed to offer the tenant money to move if/when they move out -
it may be worth it if they need to sell especially if they need to sell - we don't know why the LL want to sell now- there are thousands of reasons many of them reasonable to all of us. & they have needed the income until they sold the house.(for instance paying for relative in care home - many families do this & supplement the rest of the care costs to get best care)

I AM a landlord which is why I know the law. Blubber and whinge all you like, these tenants have done nothing illegal. it isn't landlord bashing (there's enough of that on here from the swallowers of Shelter propaganda) it is English law.

cutting off utilities, sending the boys round etc etc are all illegal and will get anyone who does it in big trouble. Repeat for the hard of thinking - only tenants and bailiffs can end a tenancy. Been there; despite the wreckage, lack of rent and drug dealing, I could not take possession until the bailiff gave me the go-ahead.

yes, it is annoying and the vendors have lost the sale. Yes, it has cost money to people who aren't the tenants. Tough shit, I'm afraid.

the OP has wisely walked away- had she exchanged and completed she would have become the landlord with all the responsibilities and costs.

i think its mad of them to risk trashing their credit rating over it-they'll have much more problems in future of it just because they didnt want to move twice if they let this go to the high court