Buying a house with tenants

[VegeBurgers]

We just had an offer accepted on a house. They did accept a low offer.
There are currently tenants in the house and they are very messy, they have a lot of possessions, they have 4 sofas in a tiny room, extra beds in the bedrooms etc. The garden is also filled with old bbq, bikes etc.
We have been told they aren’t happy about moving out. My worry is that they will leave a lot of the mess.
(I am not judging them at all, my home isn’t Instagram perfect and I know that people are trying to make ends meet and might not have time to clean)

Does anyone have experience of this? I would appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance for any replies 💐

Leaving mess is the least of your issues
Getting them to leave at all is the bigger issue
Have you budgeted for court proceedings should you need it.
This may take months too.

Tbh @VegeBurgers wouldn’t be the one paying for court proceedings etc if the tenants refused to leave because in all likelihood their solicitor would have told them not to Exchange contracts until they could see the house was vacant.

It could work out ok if the tenants decided to move out but it’s a bit messy & risky. Ideally a LL would wait until a property was empty before putting it on the market but it’s common not to in expensive places like London.

You are right to have pulled out. Huge red flags for problem Tennant's.

Unhappy to move out - bet they are paying under market rent and now anything of comparable size will be considered hugely expensive to them. They are likely not taking searching for somewhere new seriously. The council will tell them to stay put. There is a hold on evictions around xmas. Shelter/ cab/ council will advise them to look for any holes (no gas check ect) that mean they can stay longer or challenge the eviction.

I know of someone in a similar position to said tennant's and her approach is to present as much as possible as a problem Tennant. The council have told her to stay put, if she gets a council house it will be 20 mins away in the sink estate in the next town. She doesn't want to move the kids schools and she would have to drive to work instead of walk or move jobs. She makes no attempt to tidy, she's purposely letting the house get in a state, she's stopped ventilating the property properly and is drying washing for her and 6 kids in it so now it has black mould. She boasted the other week that has let the kids ride their bikes round the grass garden so it's completely churned up and will require re turfing. Her hope is that enough people don't offer on the property that the landlord gives up and lets her stay.

The fact there are so many of them living in the home means they will need a decent size home to move to (in our area there is a huge shortage of 3 and 4 bed private rentals and competition for them is huge, 3 or 4 bed council houses are like unicorn poop and not in popular areas).

You say they have bikes ect in the garden - they will want somewhere with a garden as they are almost essential when you have DC, even more so if bedroom and living spaces are cramped. This will limit their search in their minds.

They have DC they will possibly not want to move schools. This limits their search in their minds.

You can always say, when it becomes vacant you would be willing to reconsider.

I've bought a house with tenants in but I was going to let it out anyway. You need to ensure the vendor has already given section 21 notice. Tell EA you will only exchange contracts once tenants are out of the house.

I'm glad you have withdrawn!

Yes I did as as advised and withdrew the offer.

Thank you everyone 💐 you are fucking amazing!

I'm glad to hear you have decided against it, and hopefully you are just about to find a lovely tenant free house to buy 🤞🏻

I see you’ve withdrawn your offer so this may be irrelevant but when we offered on our current house it had tenants. We didn’t exchange until they had left (not just served notice but physically moved out) so the buying process was not quick but if you can wait then I wouldn’t automatically dismiss the possibility. But you do need to be clear about waiting for vacant possession - and if you have doubts I’d probably wait until then for the survey too.

Definitely pull out. It could be a long battle to get the tenants out, unfortunately. I'd only consider buying a rental if it was empty.