Selling house with tenants

[Jumpy Guy]

In the midst of the current banking nightmare, we have decided to move house within the next six months.
In order to raise the necessary capital, we need to consider selling our buy to let property.
At the moment, we have some tenants who have been renting for 7 months.
They have been that rare thing; decent tenants who (so far) haven't cost me a fortune.

So, has anyone done this before? I want to do this in such a way that a) the tenants dont get too mucked about with viewings etc b) they dont panic and move out ASAP, leaving me with no income until the house is sold.

Contract says I need to give 2 months notice.

I could be accused of wanting my cake and eating it, but..............

As ever, constructive advise appreciated.

[BoRED S2upid]

I bought a house with a tennant once. Well legally you can't they have to move out and then move back in when im the new owner. Wasn't too difficult he went away for a weekend moved everything out to a work colleagues house I took posession of the vacant house signed and he returned on the Monday to become my tenant.

[V8mate]

BoRED S2upid said:

I bought a house with a tennant once. Well legally you can't they have to move out and then move back in when im the new owner. Wasn't too difficult he went away for a weekend moved everything out to a work colleagues house I took posession of the vacant house signed and he returned on the Monday to become my tenant.

You can't sell a house with a sitting tenant? Really? I thought it happens all the time. Have never heard of a weekend's eviction to make it happen.

[johnfm]

Well, you can if ou don't need a mortgage.

But lenders would normally only lend on vacant possession.

[V8mate]

johnfm said:

Well, you can if ou don't need a mortgage.

But lenders would normally only lend on vacant possession.

Ahhh. OK. I must have been thinking just of investment buyers.

[touching cloth]

I am sure there are some buy to let lenders out there who will lend on a currently let property, depending of course on the tenancy type being a fairly standard AST etc. Having said that I have never done it so could be wrong. Only thing I would say is that you are limiting your market instantly to investment buyers who will always want to pay bottom price to maximise returns especially in this market, would imagine that will hit the value quite hard compared to selling it as a standard vacant possession sale.

[Odie]

Offer to sell to the tenant?

[scotal]

Never done a sael with sitting tenants, but I have been told that its a complete nightmare. AS TC says you are immediately limiting your market and your lending options.

If however you are hoping to simply show the property and ask the tenants to move out as and when you agree a sale all well and good. (They probably wont be happy about it, so may quit on you.)


Have you offered them the chance to buy it?

[rusal]

piece of cake done it a few times but only works if you have tennants that the people want to keep.
if good tennants then highly desirable if the rent is good.
if not then its normally enough to put anyone off buying privately.
you can serve notice on your tennant to empty it but as ponted out a bank or BS unlikely to lend against tennanted.

[anonymous-user]

Sounds easy enough.

Where in bucks is the property?

[Jumpy Guy]

Thanks for the input.

I have to admit to being a bit surprised- it hadn't occured to me that the buyer might want to keep it as a Let.

I had assumed a 'normal' buyer would buy, to actually live in themselves.

To be honest, thats more likely, given the value of the house and the rental income....

[fivesixseven8]

I'm a tenant and my LL tried to sell the house.

They were quite decent with us and came over to explain that they had to try and sell due to their mortgage costs. They asked us to stay renting while they try and sell and in return they were going to give us the last two months rent back, still giving us our 2 month notice as they had to.

There were a few issues around viewings. I won't let anyone in the house, even the LL, unless either my wife or I are there. The estate agent got a bit funny about us only allowing viewings on the weekends, and I lost it with them once after they had hassled us to book a viewing for a Saturday lunch time (meaning us cancelling plans) and then they didn't turn up!
Also, whilst I was happy to tidy and clean the house up prior to a viewing, we both work full time and like to relax at evenings/weekends rather than turning the house into a show home in order to help a sale.

I'd be open with the tenant and explain the situation. Maybe offer them an incentive to stay or you could quite easily find yourself with no tenant at all.

[Coco H]

we did this - it was our home which we let temporarily whilst away for work. The problem was the tennants didn't want to leave.
We had to give notice which we did - more than 2 months it stated - I think we gave three.
All seemed well - the estate agents did worry me when they said ummm well we'll just do outside shots for the broshure. The tennants were obstructive about viewings but did some.
Then the rent stopped - they claimed they both lost their jobs. They refused the council house allocated as they didn't like the area it was in and wanted us to accept their social benefits.
It was tough as they had children at school in the area and we could have been forced to keep on the property just to let to them - we only just broke even every month and when int rates were higher we made a loss.
Luckily the court found in our favour - it did help it was our sole property and I had moved due to work and we were in rented.
Anyway house sold for 20k over asking , tennants evicted three days before - so a good result for us! Only 3 days of mortgage not covered.
Mind you the house was in a right mess - I reckon we could have got more for it had we done the work ourselves once tennants left