Our landlord wants us to leave during the viewings

[olyaro]

Our landlord has put the flat up for sale and viewings are due to start soon. Yesterday we were told that we’re expected to leave the property during the viewings.

This would be quite difficult for us. I work from home in the mornings, and in the afternoons my child is back from nursery, so leaving the flat so regularly would be a big problem for me. This is in addition to getting the place ready for each viewing, which already takes quite a bit of time and effort. And to be honest, I’m also not comfortable with people coming into our home while we’re not there.

We’re happy to cooperate with viewings at reasonable times, but we’d prefer to stay in the flat while they take place. What do you think?

How about encouraging landlords to be a bit more respectful of the people who are paying off their mortgage for them? About landlords being more aware that many people work from home, as the OP does? About landlords having the common courtesy of negotiating mutually acceptable times and even offering some compensation if the tenant agrees to a tenant free viewing?

House moves are not about profit.
I find it very odd this post keeps resorting to finances.

I’ve rented a number of times and twice the property has been put up for sale.
for one I did all the viewings myself, for the other I did the second viewings.
both sold quickly with multiple offers, yes I had to move to the buyers and landlords schedule but it did my bit a facilitated every aspect of it. And cleaned thoroughly followed by a professional cleaning company and window cleaning company ready for the new owner. That’s common courtesy. I don’t understand why it’s such an inconvenience to be kind and respectful.

Huh?

Profit, getting to move where they want were two motives suggested by me for why a seller has a vested interest in being inconvenienced. Happy to hear of any other motivations (moving on after a divorce, say) but the point is the same. It is in the direct interest of the owner, in a way that it is not in the direct interest of a renter, so you repeatedly drawing an equivalence between the two is fatuous.

The way it works with a tenanted property is that the landlord waits until the tenants have moved out then markets the property. Anything else is a violation of the tenant's rights. The fact that some landlords unreasonably expect tenants to tolerate viewings does not make it right.

Why else do you think landlords want to market properties while tenants are stlll in situ if not for the sake of finances?!

It can work either way and in almost all circumstances it is not unreasonable.

In your opinion. Most people think you're wrong.

Common sense. And because people like OP have no vision and can’t view empty properties and visualise how the would live there.

OP works from home. She raises her family from home. She is already allowing viewings, which is above and beyond.

Her LL isn’t happy with that and wants her to clear herself and her family out when viewings happen, regardless of their convenience. Sounds like the LL is the unreasonable one!

When you're the only one who thinks something is 'common' sense then it's not common is it? It's @Tortephant's sense which is quite a different thing

AKA - the LL wants to make it easier to find future tenants, because finances. Otherwise they could of course buy some second hand furniture to lay the empty space out. Why not, since you think it would be cheap and easy for op to buy and install cameras?

More fool you for doing the estate agents/LL's job for them.
Perhaps you have lots of free time. Most people have a job and a family. Some people work from home and can't afford to be interrupted. Your suggestion of installing cameras in case things are stolen is a very silly one.

Being kind and repectful works two ways. Putting pressure on @olyaro to accept viewings and then stipulating that she needs to be out of the house is not kind, is very disrespectful, especially considering that the OP is being kind by agreeing to viewings. It sounds like bullying to me. They also have no legal leg to stand on, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly. This certainly doesn't sound like a good LL or agent.

"you really can't afford to own the property"

This is a really widespread issue. In fact many small landlords dont "own" the property at all. They own a lot of debt to service. Sometimes even on top of more debt for their own residential property. You can see why they get stressed about the reality of voids.
Allowing this kind of "investment" in the residential property market was a really bad idea. It was started way back in 1996 by Natwest and Paragon. It created a false sense of positivity in housing and created a lengthy economic prop that successive government's wouldn't let go of, and even proped up at times when it looked like tapering off. You can't really blame people for wanting a piece of that pie.
There are big numbers of late entrants that are now trying to exit and either dodge loosing their shirts, or just cash in. Mainly because borrowing costs have normalised. Add the the long overdue changes to renters rights - and those two factors will make it a pretty interesting couple of years for the market...

Don't be daft. The LL wants to tenant to carry on paying them rent.
Why are you being so rude to the OP?

I accept your did not set out to be a LL and are having to deal with the atypical circumstance of trying to sell an overpriced sheltered home, but the fact remains you have now chosen to be a LL and therefore you cannot do anything but educate yourself on how the law works for LL and tenant.

Your glib comment that you would "have to evict" is an appalling admission of your ignorance. The tenant does not have to leave until you have gone to civil court, got a possession order, and then gone back to civil court to get bailiffs to actually evict them. If you try to move them out yourself then you would face criminal, not civil, court for illegal eviction.

I suggest you change your mindset very quickly before it bites you.
OK you need an income to cover the service charge on a sheltered home. That is sadly an aspect of inheritance that parents forget about when choosing sheltered home. Such property is notoriously hard to sell on the second hand market because they are expensive to live in. The management company rarely forgoes service charges after the owner dies. You are the callous one if you think you can have your cake and eat it.

Your contract does at least impose some condition on your tenant regarding viewings in its final 3 months. That was wisely written, but it does not entitle you to harass the tenant during those 3 months.

The only way you can put pressure on your tenant is to actually serve notice on them to confirm you will not be renewing the contract. Until you do so there is no longer any contract end since the Renters Rights Act is now in force and ALL tenancies are now rolling periodic, so by definition there is no "final 3 months" anymore.

if you still want to sell then serve notice and accept that you WILL have a void period with no income but still liable for service charges. You should approach the management company to negotiate terms with them, for example rolling over the service charge until it sells (doubtlessly at an interest cost to you).
You will also need to radically lower your inheritance expectation of the property's value given a £700 per month service charge. How long have other flats been on sale in that block?

and who is going to define what is reasonable? Plus, good luck with your references going forward. Its not like LLs are desperate for tenants

LL reference: paid rent on time, returned property in good condition. accommodated viewings at the end of the tenancy but wanted to be present for said viewings.

Hardly damning.

Yes.

That sounds like a threat. Are you suggesting that LLs should illegally bully tenants into viewings and insist that they vacate the property otherwise they will get a poor reference?

There's always the option of punishing a landlord who refuses a reference by shopping them to HMRC. My friend did this to hers once.

The law defines what is reasonable. And your point that landlords should be able to bully tenants into allowing things they are not legally entitled to ask for because landlords hold power and can punish tenants for insisting on their legal rights just makes you look like a terrible person, TBH

Not at all. But you read like a vexatious tenant who would be delighted to make a LLs life as difficult as possible.

Standard for written

What does “standard for written” mean?

If I received this reference - which is a truthful reflection of the situation t - I would consider it a good reference. Wouldn’t you?