Will estate agent tell landlord we're house hunting?

[Marblepie]

I'm hoping someone knows the answer to this as I can't find it online. We're finally able to buy after over 10 years of renting the same house. I've found an ideal house but it's being marketed by the same estate agent who manage our tenancy. I have to give our address to book a viewing, will it flag up to them that our address is managed by them, and will they tell the landlord he needs to consider looking for new tenants? Or are sales and lettings dealt with separately?

I can't decide if I'm worrying about nothing or it's part of their job to inform the landlord of these sorts of things and I'd better avoid anything marketed by them. They're one of the big national estate agents so it will be a pain to avoid them.

We'll give the landlord the contractual notice required when we've completed but we're at a really early stage and I can't risk being given notice now when it could be up to a year or even more before we actually manage to buy.

It’s absolutely not “part of their job”, but if it gets to your landlord and it’s an issue you’ll know how it got there

Genuine question - If they did find out, why would they give you notice now rather than wait (assuming you’ve been good tenants, of course)?

As pp said, there would surely be no benefit to that landlord trying to get you out early. And if they thought you might be buying via them, the estate agents would presumably strongly discourage your landlord from doing anything that would put their commission at risk!

You're massively over thinking this. If you're a good tenant why would they rock the boat?

Unless you give them explicit permission, then they shouldn't say anything

You can tell them you do not give them permission

A lot of the bigger ones have totally separate sales and letting teams in physically separate offices. So they may not even be aware!

Landlord won’t care, rental market is crazy!

Thanks everyone that's great to hear I'm probably over thinking it. I don't know why I thought it would be more likely for him to give us notice if he knew we were thinking of leaving.

It'll be worth more to the estate agent to keep you as tenants £££ than sell you a house, I reckon, so hopefully they'll be discreet.

Not really. If they sell the OP a house then they get the commission from that, create a void in a rental property they manage, get paid a tenant finding fee and all the usual fees and extras associated with a new tenancy. They also likely advise the landlord to take the opportunity to put the rent up, and then their commission or percentage fee on the rental goes up too.

I don't see how all that doesn't beat just keeping the OP as an ongoing tenant in the property and possibly failing to find another buyer for the house they're marketing.

I had been renting a property for more than a few years when I bought my first home.
I wrote to both the landlord and the letting agent saying that I would be moving out as I was buying a property but no dates confirmed yet.
Initially the letting agent wrote back saying that was fine, they were happy with that and I could tell them the dates when I knew them, and if I pulled out of the house purchase that would be fine also.
However, when I did get firm dates and told the agency, with a record of my having done this via their website, then contacted them again a few weeks later to arrange for me to drop the key back they claimed I hadn't given them enough notice.
They claimed my original message with dates, for which I had a record of having made via their website, hadn't been received by them and I would be liable for an extra month's rent.
From speaking with others this seems to be a common thing that this agency who also insisted that their own team of cleaners clean a property after letting.
I wrote to the landlords and agency, returning the key, and advised them I had canceled the DD, included the records of my previous correspondence to them, and advised them that I would be happy for them to use my deposit to pay for their team of professional cleaners to clean the property.
I never heard from them afterward.

I doubt it will even register. I sold a property that I was renting out via the same agent as I was using for the let. All the way through the process and even after completion I kept getting marketing calls from the letting arm who were unaware I was selling. This was a nationwide agency.

Be careful with dates once you do get close to exchange and completion. I wouldn't warn the letting agent in advance you're planning to move out - it can take months and months to get to completion so you don't know how long you'll need.

You're probably on a periodic tenancy by now - one months' notice - if you've been there a while and past the fixed term but do check. Normally with those you have to give notice by a certain date each month so if you pay rent on 20th of the month, give notice by the 19th to move out by the 19th of the following month. We're just doing this now and carefully working out our timings! You don't want to give notice before exchange ideally as the purchase isn't guaranteed before then (and there are whole threads on here of exchange dates getting changed at the last minute!).

I’ve seldom met one so on the ball. So I’d find this highly unlikely

😂

Years ago ours did and the landlord gave us a month notice. Totally within his rights of course but it took us almost a year to find a place to buy and so we had to arrange short term rental. The landlord had lined his fiend up to move into the bungalow we were renting and refused to extend our lease. I was pregnant too so not great timing. The agency was horrible.

This is what I'm worrying about! That sounds like a nightmare, we're on a really low budget so having to move to another rental would wipe out what we've save for conveyancing and other fees. Our landlord is not a business landlord, this was their family home and they've never raised the rent so I just have this fear that he's done this due to not wanting to rock the boat as we've been good long-term tenants, but that if he heard we are leaving then he'd want to get in new people who will pay more asap. Glad to hear it's rare and everyone's advice has been really reassuring but I'm still not sure if I dare contact the same estate agent. They certainly aren't on the ball with anything else though.

Thanks that's useful advice I wasn't sure when was the right time to let them know but after exchange makes sense. We are on a periodic tenancy so it's just a month's notice but I will check the exact day of the month it is something in the middle like you say.

We bought whilst renting and only put notice in when we had the keys. Buying is unpredictable/stressful and we nearly pulled put several times. It meant we paid rent and mortgage for a couple of months. Not ideal but it meant we still had a home I'm case buying our house didn't work out. We didn't tell the letting agents we were planning to buy. Didn't even occur to us to let them know. I think find a house marketed by a different agent. The above examples would give me pause that you could be served notice earlier than would suit your needs. Good luck.

Phone and ask the estate agency without giving your name.

We’re in this position - buying a house being sold by the agency we also rent through. Sales and lettings are separate and they’ve advised that we/they shouldn’t tell the lettings side until exchange.

Any update on how you tackled this? I'm in the same position and not sure what to do. Our Estate Agent is a local small independent with an overlap in staff for sales and lettings so there is no way our names and the fact we currently rent from them would go unnoticed. The house they have up for sale ticks all of our boxes. Not sure how to proceed.. they recently tried to tie us in on our rental for another 12 months but managed to get them to go to a monthly rolling under the premise it's to see how the recent rent increase works for us - in reality it was so we can house hunt to buy. Unfortunate the house up for sale which ticks all the boxes is up for sale with the same agent. Worried if we give the game away they wont 'play' nice, especially if we put an offer in and it either isn't accepted or the sale falls through.

@SB9462 you have to tag the OP like this @SB9462 if you want a better chance of a response - they should then get a notification.

In all likelihood, the only reason the agent was trying to get you to sign another 12 month lease is because every single time they do that, they get a contract renewal fee from the owner, whereas if they just let it go to rolling, they get no more money from the rental until you leave, and they have to find and vet new tenants.

The rental market is keeping a lot of estate agents who can't sell houses easily afloat at the moment, so if it feels like they're really pushing you, it's because the rest of their revenue has gone to shit.

I forgot about this thread. @SB9462 we are actually still house hunting all these months later. I didn't go for the house we liked in my OP as I was too worried but we've now viewed a few houses with the agent we rent with and as far as I can tell there's been no problem and I don't think they're aware we also rent with them, I haven't mentioned it. I've not found any of the estate agents pay us much attention or follow anything up. We did get the agent trying to push us onto a 12 month contact with a rent increase this month like you, but I think it's just a coincidence and they did accept us sticking with a rolling contract since we agreed to the rent increase. If it ticks all your boxes you should go for it as I have not found any of those yet.