Selling a currently rented property

[justgeton]

Hello.

I need to sell a property that belonged to a deceased relative (I am executor). It's currently rented.

How much notice do tenants normally need that they need to vacate a property?

Should we market before or after they leave (a buyer may want to rent it themselves)

Any advice very welcome.

There should be a rental agreement somewhere that lays out the notice period- its usually 1-2 months.

Personally I would market it after the tenants leave, in fact there was a thread on this board just a few days ago with a similar query which raised some good points. Personally I would be very wary of buying a house with a sitting tenant, particularly in the current climate in which eviction bans could be reintroduced.

It's 6 months notice currently , due to covid .

It will probably be easier for your tenants if you try to sell after they have left, as it's very inconvenient for them.having to facilitate viewings, especially if they're trying to pack up their belongings.

It might be possible to sell with the tenant still there if you can find a buyer who wants to rent it out. That would be less stressful for the tenant. I know someone doing just that at the moment.

If you make it clear it's to be sold with sitting tenants then go ahead and market it. Serving notice and evicting at this point is going to be a VERY long wait, plus the backlog after the process returns to normal (which is already tediously long for stubborn tenants)

Selling with tenants has all kinds of complications attached to it, so unless you plan to sell to another landlord, it is best to have the tenants move out before marketing.

The issue is that until tenants have actually vacated the property, a buyer and their solicitor cannot be convinced they will get the property with vacant possession. Tenants can say they will move out by X date and then not actually go. It is more common that pan you think and therefore, for a standard residential sale most solicitors will not be happy to exchange until the tenants have actually gone.

There are also marketing difficulties with tenants. They don’t have to agree to let prospective buyers look round (and to be fair, why should they....you’re already asking them to move on when they might not be keen to go) and even if they agree it is totally reasonable to be fairly restrictive about when they will allow viewings, plus the property will never be presented in the lovely way you might do if selling something you own.....there just is no incentive to bother ensuring washing up is done and de-cluttering certainly won’t have happened.

For these reasons most landlords will wait for a vacant property before they market it. They can do a few (or lots) bits of sprucing up and know the agents can show plenty of people at any time and hopefully get a speedy sale that can then proceed without a chain at that end.

At the moment, long notice periods due to Covid mean getting vacant possession isn’t going to be quick. There is no speedy sale to be had in this circumstance, but at least rent is coming in. You just have to resign yourself to waiting to sell really.