Would you purchase a house with sitting tenants ?

[mumof2teentoddler]

Just that really - we have an open house with 8 viewings and we are the tenants… we do have a date for the section 21 where we need to be vacant by end of May but at the moment there’s no rentals we can find. so very worried. Just wondered if this would put potential buyers off, or not.

We are very sad but understand that this can happen and the landlord wants his house back of course. We tided the house as much as we can with 2 children !

The councils are so unfair to advise tenants not to leave rented properties until the eviction order comes through. They are doing it to save themselves money (otherwise they have to find emergency/ temporary accomodation for people eligible for housing assistance), but it can cause real issues for property owners who have tenants.

My friend lets out her flat and has a big mortgage. Her tenants stopped paying rent (no right to reside in the UK so no right to benefits, job, etc). Tenants have small children so the council will have to rehouse them at least temporarily if the family ends up on the street). My friend issued a possession claim and it took many months until the case was heard in court. The judge adjourned the case as the tenants pretended not to speak or understand English, so another hearing had to be set up with an interpreter. Some months later a Possession order was granted, but the tenants refused to move out because the council had advised them to stay put until the eviction warrant was granted, which took a while longer. All the while, my friend didn’t receive a single penny from them and almost lost her flat to the mortgage company. So unfair!

I know this is completely different from your situation, but I feel both tenants and landlords have to play fair. If you don’t move out when s21 expires because you can’t find anywhere else to rent, why do you think you’ll be able to find something when the possession order comes through? Plus, when potential buyers find out that the tenants have remained in the house after s21 expired, they’ll know that the tenants have no intention to move until the day they are evicted, so nobody will make an offfer on the house. Please don’t make your problem someone else’s problem.

Edited to say SORRY op, I’m being harsh in my post, I’m obviously projecting as I’m so upset for my friend. I know you’re v reasonable, you’re allowing viewing, you’re planning to move and I can imagine how anxious you might be.

I’m hoping the friend with the overseas tenant did a right to rent check before letting to them?

@Gabitule I understand you’re angry for your friend, but this is unfair. In areas of housing shortage - which is a lot of the country - tenants being evicted under S21 have no option but to wait to be made involuntarily homeless otherwise they risk being forced on to the streets. Councils across the country are going bankrupt because they don’t have enough funding, and nobody, presumably including your friend, wants a big hike in council tax to ensure we have enough social housing to meet need. Your friend, if setting out to be a landlord, should have insurance or funds in hand to cover situations like this, including fallow periods where she is without tenants, legal costs associated with the building or tenancy, and unexpected repairs. If receiving full rent every month, on time is the only way you can repay your mortgage as a landlord, you shouldn’t be doing it.

@Gabitulebecause it simply gives us time and while your friend’s situation sounds awful that’s nothing like the situation that I’m presented with. So not really a comparison

@Thistooshallpsss yes, my friend’s tenants have the right to live and rent in the UK, just no recourse to public funds. Accomodation would be provided via the council’s social services.

@StopWindingBobStopWinding I’m aware of the housing crisis; however, the council should not be telling tenants to remain in rented property once the notice of seeking possession expires, or once a possession order has been obtained. By doing this they may, on one side, save themselves (and the taxpayer) a bit of money but, on the other side, increase the costs of the justice system as court fees are subsidised by the taxpayer. All I’m saying is that the councils should not advise people to refuse to move out of their homes as a strategy to save themselves money, to the detriment of a landlord who is perhaps just a regular individual who happens to let our their home.

My friend rented out her flat in order to move in with her boyfriend and any savings she had were depleted once her tenants stopped paying. She does have landlord insurance but this doesn’t cover loss of earnings if her tenants stop paying.

Anyway, there are always multiple sides to every story. I appreciate there’s a housing shortage but if tenants don’t play fair, some landlords may decide to not rent out their properties as not worth the hassle and this will only add to the housing shortage.

5/8 turned up, 3 cancellations and one random person/couple thought it was ok to knock unannounced and hadn’t made an appointment with the agent and it was outside of the 2 hour time slot 🙄just decided to turn up

Not a chance in hell.

When do people usually make offers? Same day? And when are we likely to know ? I’m assuming our landlord will keep us in the loop? Wards did state it wouldn’t come from them but our landlord
I know we can ask but I think I’ll wait as not as though we have to change anything just be nice to know if an offer came from this bunch

Unless a really keen cash buyer puts in an offer next week and doesn't want to have surveys etc, I'd be surprised if the sale process happens as quickly as your landlord is hoping. I think 5-6 months is a pretty standard timescale for surveys, searches, mortgage etc to be done. I'd ask LL to list the property as having tenants in situ and remove the address/state that viewings are strictly appointment only, so you're not being disturbed.

Is it particularly cheap or unusual, is it the sort of house that comes on the market very rarely, if not, none of the viewers may put in an offer.

DH & me had several flats that we used to rent out.

We would never buy a property that had tenants in situ.

As PP have said, it's your home while you're paying rent & your LL has no right to bring potential buyers around to view it. When we sold our flats we waited until the end of the lease (always on 1 year leases) before getting estate agents in. But we rented to either students or single people not families. The flats were also in a university city with a healthy rental market so not difficult for our ex-tenants to find somewhere else - especially as the agent who managed the properties was very happy to help to find our good tenants alternative accommodation.

I think it’s low for what it is and I think the area is sought after 😕

Yes we understand we have time which is reassuring just wondering when people usually make offers. The actual ad has the date which I thought was strange as now they need to change the date for the next one unless they just do that.

How cheap is it v same style /size of house for area

id be gutted if my tenant forced me down a route of getting her evicted.

If your tenant leaves of her own volition without a confirmed rental to go to, she will be treated as having made herself "intentionally homeless" and will get nothing from the council, not even a hostel bed.

I really dont like advice about dont go, make your LL go down the legal route.

If the OP cannot find herself another place to live, she must stay until she is evicted.

We are humans too with anxieties and other things going on.

You won't be deemed intentionally homeless. The tenant will. It is grotesquely unfair to try to use your hurty feelings to emotionally blackmail a tenant into making herself "intentionally homeless" and hence ineligible for council emergency accommodation.

The tenant is already in a private rental, why would you imagine the council should house her?
There are private rentals for those that want them.

Did I, at any point, tell the OP not to search for a new let?

Did you miss the part of the bigly letters that said "until you either have moved into another place"?

If she cannot find a suitable private rental, she must not leave until she is evicted. This is Shelter's advice to avoid being statutorily deemed "intentionally homeless".

The council have a duty to house unintentionally homeless people.

What I am saying is: OP should not risk her housing option of last resort.

I'm not talking about normal, long-term council housing. I'm talking about emergency housing if OP gets to her quit date without somewhere else lined up.

To explain this in simple, numbered points:

1. The OP has been given S21 no-fault notice to end tenancy.
2. The OP is now having to rush to find another rental or else the means to buy.
3. The combination of (1) and (2) may mean that OP may not find another suitable place to live before the end of her current tenancy.
4. A tenant becomes "intentionally homeless" (this term has legal meaning) if she leaves a rented property by any means other than a court ordered eviction and has nowhere else to go. A tenant who is evicted by bailiffs with a valid court order, with nowhere else to go, is deemed "unintentionally homeless".
5. If the OP and her children become "unintentionally homeless", the council are obliged to try to find her emergency accommodation. If she becomes "intentionally homeless", that duty does not apply and she and her kids could be on the streets. The council gave the advice to stay put on that basis.
6. The combination of (4) and (5) mean that, if (3) occurs and OP has run out of time in her house search, she must not leave without somewhere else to go until such time as the bailiffs show up with a valid court order.

A distressingly high proportion of people do not know about (4) and (5). They think that they must leave on the end date of their tenancy no matter what, and find out the hard way that they are wrong.

(6) isn't being deliberately difficult. (6) isn't being a bad tenant nor a bad person. (6) certainly doesn't mean not bothering to try to search for another rental and not making the enquiries that she is currently making about buying her landlord out. I encourage everyone facing a S21 to try to find another place to live, if only because a place of your choosing will be nicer than a council hostel.

(6) is refusing to burn the last safety net between a person and street homelessness, a safety net that everyone hopes they will never need.

I was trying to quote an OP update, but the quote failed.

so we could leave after the court give us a date BEFORE the bailiffs ?

In the specific circumstance of you running out of tenancy before you have another home, you stay put until the bailiffs come and keep trying to find another home.

Obviously, keep trying to look for somewhere to live.

Reading your updates, I really hope that you manage to buy him out.

What could you sell? Having a clear-out via Vinted/Ebay/Facebook Marketplace nets you cash in return for less stuff.

If you end up moving, less stuff and more money would make the move easier. If you don't move and buy him out, you'll have less stuff to move aside when you decorate it the way you want and more money for paint.

Oh, my sweet summer child...

england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/homelessness/intentionally_homeless#if-you-get-a-section-21-notice

if tenants don’t play fair

FFS stop trying to make tenants responsible for the councils' policies.

However inconvenienced a landlord may be, it is the tenant who is left homeless and at risk of sleeping on the streets. In terms of hardship caused, street homelessness massively massively trumps a few thousand pounds in lost profit. Being a landlord is usually a choice. Being a tenant, not so much. As for the "someone needs to be a landlord" supply argument, the answer is "a lot more social housing", not "fewer rights for tenants". We are talking about people having a place to live, it's a core human need in a post-hunter-gatherer society that needs legal protections.

Are you hoping to buy the type of place you are currently living in? Is your income enough to purchase the property, if you are nearly there could you make an offer within your budget?

Oh, my sweet summer child...

Is this the latest MN putdown phrase, it's on loads of threads recently