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.

@GabsAlot

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

How will their credit rating be trashed if they continue to pay the rent?

@LizzieAnt

@ 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.

Legally the tenants are blameless. They are nothing to do with the OP or the sale.

If you are happy to give the benefit of the doubt to the LL about their motives for selling quickly then why not offer the same to the tenant?

The LL way beyond naive if they didn't consider the fact that a global pandemic may affect things - the tenants, the process, any of it.

Very few tenants go through the court process for shits and giggles. It's expensive when they get hit by costs.

As a PP has said this thread is also an example of why it needs court to end a tenancy. Some of the statements on this thread about sending round heavies or cutting off utilities are absolutely vile.

@Alsohuman
If being a person of your word makes you a doormat then so be it.They're not in the right here. You know as well as I do that if the courts were efficient they'd be ordered to leave immediately.

@Alsohuman
They're not in the right here. Bad time for a typo

[quote LizzieAnt]@Alsohuman
If being a person of your word makes you a doormat then so be it.They're not in the right here. You know as well as I do that if the courts were efficient they'd be ordered to leave immediately.[/quote]
But you don’t know that. Nor do I. That’s the entire point of going to court.

@Lyralalala
I'm not really giving the benefits of the doubt to the landlord. I said I don't know his motives...I mentioned he could be greedy as well as offering other explanations.
The OP said the tenants simply didn't want the hassle of moving into another place (same rent and moving costs at the landlord's expense).
I know moving is a hassle, but I think if they had agreed to move out on a certain date then they should uphold their end of the bargain. Although it's legal to stay where they are while the matter goes through the courts, I don't think it's the right thing to do (and I think the courts will agree whenever they get round to it). What would you do in the tenants' place?

@Alsohuman
True, but if the situation is as the OP has described I'd be very surprised if a court didn't rule in favour of the landlord. Do you really think otherwise?

sorry i meant if they dont pay-i still wuldnt want baliffs turning up like that and making me leave im sure its not dignified

Probably these tenants have no intention of going that far though, these are delaying tactics while their house is being finished.

I'd be very surprised if a court didn't rule in favour of the landlord

If the landlord has failed to meet one of their obligations, for example if they've not provided a gas safety certificate or taken a deposit larger than the legal limit, then the court will rule the s21 notice is invalid.

OP, being neither the landlord nor the tenant, can't tell us these kind of details.

@LizzieAnt

Probably these tenants have no intention of going that far though, these are delaying tactics while their house is being finished.

Of course they are. And, given that no eviction process will take place at all for the next six weeks and there’s apparently a massive backlog, it’s very unlikely this will go anywhere near a court.

I’m massively over invested in this!

The LL 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

While true, this really isn't a road I'd want to go down - it's hard enough to get tenants out as it is, without encouraging a situation where they bribe LLs to go

And yes, most of us understand the legal difference between what tenants agree to do and what's sometimes necessary to make them do it, but frankly some of their attitudes remind me of a 5 year old shouting "Shan't!! You can't make me!!"

@Alsohuman Me too
You have a point @safariboot. I'm only working off the facts as the OP has presented them - of course it could be a good deal more complicated.

[quote LizzieAnt]@Lyralalala
I'm not really giving the benefits of the doubt to the landlord. I said I don't know his motives...I mentioned he could be greedy as well as offering other explanations.
The OP said the tenants simply didn't want the hassle of moving into another place (same rent and moving costs at the landlord's expense).
I know moving is a hassle, but I think if they had agreed to move out on a certain date then they should uphold their end of the bargain. Although it's legal to stay where they are while the matter goes through the courts, I don't think it's the right thing to do (and I think the courts will agree whenever they get round to it). What would you do in the tenants' place?[/quote]
The OP has no idea if that's why the tenants aren't moving though. The LL and her solicitor didn't even bother telling her about the S21 so I don't think we can really take their word for it.

Plus since that agreement was made in March there has been a global pandemic. We have no idea of the tenants position. Obviously if the LL has done everything properly in terms of the S21 the court will find in his favour.

Impossible to say what I'd do in the tenants shoes because I don't know what their situation is. I know that when MIL's tenant had to stay put until eviction day to be housed by the council the situation was frustrating (because MIL wanted to sell her house after FIL's death - it had been paying his care home fees), but I totally sympathised with the specific situation the tenant was in

The only thing we know for sure is that the OP's solicitor let her down badly by not telling her how risky the situation was.

@Lyralalala
Yes, I agree that if the tenants' situation is more complicated then of course there may be mitigating circumstances. However, I was responding to the facts as they were presented by the OP. As regards the pandemic, yes it may have impacted them, but it may also have impacted the landlord, we just don't know.

I suppose I was surprised that some people on this thread thought that tenants who were presented as "just not wanting the hassle of moving twice" were regarded as completely "blameless" when they were refusing to keep to a previously made agreement, ignoring the S21 issued months previously, and refusing even to indicate when they would be prepared to leave.

The tenants have overstayed their tenancy and are technically now living in a property with no agreement in place and are effectively squatting.

Of course they aren't squatting. All the indications are that they are continuing to pay rent. Therefore they're still tenants with a right to say there.

They have cost their landlord and the op significant financial and emotional investment

No, the vendor has done that. He knew the legal position both when he entered into the tenancy agreement and when he decided to sell the property. He decided to put the property on the market knowing there was no guarantee that he could give vacant possession when the buyers wanted. He could have avoided all of these problems by waiting till he had vacant possession. He must have factored these risks into the rent he is charging - if he didn't, he's a fool.

Although it's legal to stay where they are while the matter goes through the courts, I don't think it's the right thing to do (and I think the courts will agree whenever they get round to it).

The courts won't make any finding on that. They will only be interested in whether there was a valid s21 notice which has expired, and potential defences such as whether the landlord has kept to the rules re the deposit etc.

refusing even to indicate when they would be prepared to leave.

Are they, @LizzieAnt? Isn't the problem that they don't know when they can leave as it depends on the renovations? I suspect they'd love to move out and into their newly renovated home at the earliest possible opportunity, not least so that they can stop paying rent. However, it would be silly for them to commit to a date till they know when that will be.

@Pobblebonk
Again, I'm just going on what the OP has said. I agree the tenants probably don't know exactly when their renovations will be finished, but surely that's their own problem to sort out? It's a pity it's ended up being their landlord's problem too, but it has, to the extent that he has lost a sale and his son has been unable to purchase his first home. The OP has lost money too, but I agree with others that her business is with the landlord and her solicitor, not with the tenants of course.
And it seems that all this was down to the tenants' refusal to honour their original agreement with the landlord, and to ignore the S21 he issued. There may be other complications we're not aware of, as others have pointed out, but taken at face value, it appears to be selfish behaviour on the part of the tenants imo. The fact that the landlord should have been prepared for this to happen doesn't make the tenants behaviour acceptable, at least in my opinion, and I was surprised that others thought they were blameless.

"They have cost their landlord and the op significant financial and emotional investment"

"No, the vendor has done that. He knew the legal position both when he entered into the tenancy agreement and when he decided to sell the property. He decided to put the property on the market knowing there was no guarantee that he could give vacant possession when the buyers wanted. He could have avoided all of these problems by waiting till he had vacant possession. He must have factored these risks into the rent he is charging - if he didn't, he's a fool."

Maybe LL couldn't afford to leave place empty...but that doesn't matter because of this ridiculous rule that tenants can stay put, despite what they agree.

Just as it's the rules for buyer to lose her costs...doesn't make it fair!

Isn't the problem that they don't know when they can leave as it depends on the renovations? I suspect they'd love to move out and into their newly renovated home at the earliest possible opportunity, not least so that they can stop paying rent

As there is now no contract then I presume they stopped paying rent as well.

yes, there is still a valid tenancy. Who knows if the tenants have stopped paying? although if they have it won't speed up any eviction.

for the MN fingers-in-ears brigade:

a section 21 is a 'no fault' eviction, now England only. If all the paperwork and associated items are correct the court will issue a possession order. This normally takes 3 months from the end of the notice and will now be much longer. If the tenant still doesn't leave (perfectly legal) the landlord then requests bailiffs. Currently around a year from start to finish, I think.

in practice section 21 is often used when a tenant is at fault as section 8 is so easily circumvented. Should the fault be 'not paying' there will still be no CCJ issued, that is a separate process.

the iminent removal of section 21 without any associated improvement in the process for getting rid of deal/steal/wrecking tenants is what will make many landlords leave the business. But if you Shelter-propaganda-swallowers think that will magically produce lots more rental property at lower rates, your heads are really firmly up your arses.

I wonder with this sort of thing if op had arrived with her stuff and moved in where would the tenants recourse be.

They don’t own the property, there isn’t any contract to say they should be there that op was involved in.

What if op had arrived and found a load of furniture in her new house and the “tenants” weren’t there and op and the removal men cleared the furniture.

What would happen then when the tenants came back and found the locks changed their furniture out on the street and op cooking tea in her kitchen.