Moving from your sold house into a rental property

[OldBun58]

We are completing the sale of our house in 4-5 weeks and because we have not found a suitable property to buy, we are having to move into a rental one and keep looking.

How do we secure a rental house? Do we need to exchange contracts first? Will the agents even show us a property if we have not exchanged yet?

It all seems to be very complicated, as without a secured rental we can't stipulate a completion date to exchange contracts. Yet without the exchange of contracts we can't secure the accommodation. There is a shortage of rental properties in our area and they get snapped very quickly. Also, the vast majority of landlords want long-term tenants, but we are hoping to buy a house in less than a year.

How do other sellers go about setting the dates of completion when moving into a rental property?

In what respect?

We obviously paid our mortgage off on completion day. Our rental took into account our income only.

I see, my rental is dependent on completion so holding out for exchange.
The lettings agent is actually okay with me putting the deposit down now, which would be too much money for me to lose
Just hope my buyer and the buyer's buyer will be okay with my rental move in date which could potentially be up until the end of March. I know Stamp Duty rate rise is the big incentive to get going asap.
I can't wait to exchange!

Is the rental deposit non-refundable then? What happens if you don't exchange - will you lose the deposit? Is it one week or a month of rent?

Did you pay for the whole year in advance???

No, I paid a holding deposit to secure the rental which would have been refundable if I failed credit checks. I am in an area where one needs to act v quickly if a rental becomes available. I was first in the door to view and said I liked it on the spot and paid about 250 reservation fee. At the time I was able to move straight in and offered to pay 6 months in advance. Which I did, then I moved in a couple of weeks later and the sale of my house completed about 2 months after that

Yep, the deposit is equivalent to a month's rent and non refundable.

I had to pay a month's rent as deposit once the credit checks were back. The holding deposit of 250 was taken off the first month's rent.

Our deposit was 5 weeks (nearly £3k) but we held off paying it for as long as possible and definitely weren't willing to pay it pre exchange. We did have a holding deposit of £550 too which was non-refundable.

We secured a rental pre exchange (it was supposedly imminent) and then exchange was delayed for 3 months. We moved anyway and thankfully the sale eventually went through and we didn’t have to re market an empty house. Financially we were not dependent on the sale to afford the rent but it was stressful at the time especially as we were moving to the other end of the country and had to leave the house empty mid winter.

I paid two weeks I think prior to credit checks which was non refundable. But the deposit then was a further two weeks. Then once I'd given notice there was a bit of a fight to get my deposit back even though the apartment was spotless.

I paid monthly so not a whole year in advance.

We have spoken to our conveyancer today, and he suggested to propose a completion date as ‘on a date mutually agreed, but no later than 31 March’. That means, that if we find a property available at an earlier date, then we are happy to move out before 31 March. But we need contracts exchanged first, to get that property.

That sounds like a potential way for you Old! But exchange very much needs to happen for you to move out.
We're still chasing the buyers here. I'm hoping we'll have an update by the end of the week.

I hope we both exchange this week

We did this in 2021 as our house sold from under us and we hadn’t found anything. Back then rentals were thin on the ground too but luckily I found a lovely one as I had a Rightmove alert on. Asked for an immediate viewing and said we’d take it at the viewing. They were happy to agree rental regardless of exchange or not. It was managed by a reputable estate agent who were very helpful.

Initially it said no pets (was spotless modern detached with garden) and we had 2 older basset hounds. However I sent them a link to our sold house that was kept beautifully and also said dogs never go upstairs, and the landlord came back straight away and said it was fine. It did have hard floors downstairs too. We were there for 8 months in the end until we bought our present house.

Have to say it was a lot less stressful breaking the chain this way even though we ended up putting two thirds of our belongings into storage as we rented a smaller property than we sold/bought. Storage was very cheap also. I’d be tempted to do it again this way. Also had a cross over of a week or so with both selling and buying, and it was great not having to do all the moving in just one day.