Giving notice on rental when purchasing - AIBU?

[Ariellaminta]

I just want to check my thinking on this and would appreciate the wisdom of MN.

After seven long years of renting, DH and I have just had an offer accepted on a house.

We are on a monthly rolling rental contract, where we have to give one full rental period's notice. So our notice could be as short as one month (if we time it right), or just under two months (if we don't!).

The estate agent is saying that completion is currently taking about 12 weeks, so that would be around mid/late August.

Everything I have read online says not to give notice on our house until we exchange. As until then, there are myriad ways in which things could go wrong and we could end up with no house to live in if the sale falls through!

However, a family member is being particularly vocal about how "unfair" they think it would be on our landlord to only give her 1-2 months' notice, and that it would be a "courtesy" to let her know much earlier (via the lettings agency) that we are thinking of moving. As in, to mention it now!

I think this would be unwise. But I just want to check my thinking?

Decent overlap is fantastic for a leisurely move - or when I couldn't overlap, I packed up and put most of my stuff into storage (i used a service that brings a big wooden pod, you fill it up over a couple of days, and they take it away for however long you need, then deliver it to your new house when you're ready) so that I didn't have moving day hassle.

Agree with all pp and will also add that I would be very vocal with all parties involved (solicitor, estate agent etc) that exchange can happen any month, but must be between x date and y date, so you can avoid having to give two months notice.

I did this from the beginning, verbally and in writing and repeated it in any relevant emails/ conversations. It meant that close to the end, when we were discussing dates, I could hold firm and say 'it has to be x or wait a month, you have all known this for a while".

OMG absolutely do not give notice before exchange. We had 2 different FTB in rentals give notice early to try and save a bit of money.

For the first one it caused the chain to collapse (delays further up the chain meant FTB had to move into another 6 month rental or be homeless, so they moved rentals and pulled out of buying our house).

For the second they were able to proceed but very nearly made themselves homeless for a few days because the rest of the chain couldn't get removals for the date they'd agreed (without discussing it with anyone) to vacate their rental house.

You can stipulate specific point in the month for exchange if it helpa with your notice period. But please do budget for a bit of overlap.

I'm a landlord and a month's notice is absolutely normal, I would not expect more

I have had tenants give me a heads up and been grateful but it's not usual

If you can, get a couple of weeks between exchange and completion then you can give notice at exchange and only have a couple of weeks' overlap on rent/mortgage (which is worth it for a leisurely cleaning/decorating/moving process!)

Yeah, ignore family member. They're being ridiculous. The landlord is essentially running a business. Do you think they'd pay you the same courtesy if for whatever reason they needed to sell/get their house back? Unlikely.

Treat this as the business relationship it is and put your own interests first.

I'm a landlord and sure I'd appreciate a heads up but wouldn't think anything of it if just given the statutory notice period. Not like there's anything I could do until the tenant moved out anyway.

Well this was my point really... they didn't have to give me more notice but it would have been considerate.
And yes I did look after it very well, not that it's really your business! I didn't know the fence was broken because they didn't tell me and I didn't disturb them. And repainting one room after people have lived there 5 years isn't much really!

Well this was my point really... they didn't have to give me more notice but it would have been considerate.

The trouble is giving more notice only benefits the landlord. What happens if the chain collapses or issues are found at thr survey and the sale falls through but you've given your landlord more notice and now they have got new tenants lined up. Let's be 100% honest here they aren't going to turn around and say hey no problem stay as long as you like. They are naturally going to want the new tenants in as they know the current tenants will be moving soon and the new tenants will be paying rent for years.

yes that's true I suppose... depressingly

We gave notice but two months (move in date was a month) but it gave us a bit of wiggle room in case it went wrong!!

We moved out on time and planned pick up let bits over the coming weeks. Landlord was a bit naughty as he heard we moved out already, he went over without our permission- but I had just had the carpets professionally cleaned, he walked through with muddy boots! I had a little go as we had personal letters and a few bits still there! All sorted in the end as he wanted to go in and redecorate and it needed new windows so let us of the last months rent! But we had costed two months in our numbers just to protect us.

Since you're already on a rolling contract, there's no point really, you're not doing her out of any notice period.

Please do not give notice. We gave notice before exchanging and the sellers pulled out few days before exchanging and it was such a mess to sort out a place before we could search again.

I would not advise giving heads up to the landlord. We did this once and the landlord decided to evict us in return as he wanted to have certainty about our leaving date and have more than a month notice.
Luckily our purchase went ahead but if not we would have been in a pickle.

If the landlord wasn't happy with it, they could have set the contract up differently.

We ended up giving our landlord quite a bit of notice, but that was because there was a bit of an overlap where we owned a house that wasn't really habitable so were still renting! (That was not a fun few months financially.)

I’m a landlord of one flat. A heads up would be nice but I certainly wouldn’t expect it. Personally, I don’t do viewings until the tenant has left because the flat doesn’t look at its best when it’s packed with the tenant’s stuff. I always presume it will be empty for at least a month because, no matter how well it has been looked after, there’s always stuff to do like touching up the gloss work, emulsioning a room or two or replacing carpets.

Im pretty flexible and don’t hold tenants to an exact date. The last time there was a change of tenant, the completion date on their new house got delayed (as tends to happen when buying a house!) so I ended up working out what the daily rent was and we went week to week. I’m perfectly happy to do things like that.

The rental market is strong. 1 months notice is fine. 2 months would be better if you can but you have a contract and you are doing exactly what it says.

And rentals move fast. I viewed several in early Sept last year, had to fight off loads of competition, go through the world's most horrendous referencing process and still manage to get a move in date a few weeks later, before the end of Sept.

Any sensible landlord who knows what they're doing will have budgeted to cover a void period, and for touching up things like paintwork and replacing carpets between tenants. They've been lucky to have you as tenants for so long and avoided any void periods!

Honest opinion? Sit on the info until your solicitor tells you that you aren't far off exchanging contracts........We haven't even exchanged contracts yet and our offer was accepted in November !! Still the same buyers and still the same onwards purchase . It's just been really slow . Some big delays at the moment
You must be so excited to get your first owned house though ! How lovely

I am a landlord no way would I expect more than the notice period from my tenants. If it means I carry a couple of weeks untenanted, so be it. Those are the costs of being a landlord. One of the perks of being a renter should be the flex it gives you in this situation.

I wouldn't give notice until exchange has taken place. The vendor of the house I was due to buy earlier this year pulled out after 7 months, having changed her mind. This was on the day of exchange, a week before we were supposed to complete.

Years ago when I rented a flat with EXDP the annual renewal came up. I insisted on 1 month notice being put into the next contract for us, as we were thinking of buying a house.

When we eventually found somewhere to buy, it needed work, so we didn't say anything, and had an overlap of a couple of months between flat and house. When the new house was almost ready we gave our contractual 1 month notice and received a long and ranting email back from the landlord saying she was really disappointed in us, we should have stayed at least 10 years like her other tenants (we were there for 2 years) and we should have told her well before our legal contractual notice Landlord was then extremely frosty any time she saw us during the 4 weeks notice period, as she lived in the upstairs flat. Luckily I only saw her once as I had moved into my parents for support, having given birth to DC2 two weeks previously.

As I said, I wouldn't give notice until exchange has taken place.