Buying property from private landlady

Ben_Baileys

Hi everyone. Wondering if you could give me a bit of advice.

Basically my partner and I are happy tenants in a nice place which our landlady has decided to sell. She hasn't, as far as we know, begun the process yet and has just given us notice to move out. We are, hopefully in a position to buy the property from her as we have money for a decent deposit. However we haven't told her of our intentions yet.

We would be first time buyers without any real understanding of how the whole process operates, but I feel that the fact that we are currently in the property and are happy with it would work to her advantage as she may be able to save on certain fees.

What would be the pros and cons for her of selling the property to us? What should we point out to her as being in her favour?

Many thanks for any words of wisdom.

RubyBish

I approached a landlord to buy a flat I was renting once.
The advanatages for the landlord are no estate agent fees, rent upto completion day and hopefully a buyer you know and trust.

The disadvantage could be that if they use a letting agent then they are likely to be under contract to pay the letting agent 2% if the tenants buy. (I assume you are direct though as you use the term 'private')

I suggest you arrange an estate agent to value the property for you (pretend you are the owner and wish to sell) to give you an idea of value and then contact the landlord directly.

The problem when i tried this is that after I had made an offer they still put the proprty on the market and in the end we found somewhere nicer.

Ben_Baileys

Thanks RubyBish

Good points. And that's a good idea about us getting an estate agent in ourselves. Are we able to just do that? It sounds a bit dodgy to me!

Ben_Baileys

How much are estate agents fees likely to be?

Gem_

If you buy direct from the landlady then there will be no estate agent fees. It is the seller that pays EA fees anyway not the buyer.

Getting an EA in to do a valuation is a free no obligation service, most people get three in and then use the middle figure as the 'true' one. The other thing to do is to look up what houses in your area have really sold for, you can look this up online at the land reg or though a site such as upmystreet.com

As a buyer you would pay for solicitors fees and searches. Last time I did this it was about £350 (depends on the solicitor).

Gem

RubyBish

Ben_Baileys wrote:

How much are estate agents fees likely to be?

The seller is likely to have to pay between 1.5%-2% +vat of the sale price to the estate agent if they use one estate agency only. If you have a valuation done the EA will inform you of their fees.
Some variation in fees will occur in different parts of the country and also the size of the property.

And to reiterate what gem_ says, valuations are a no obligations service. Dont be afraid to use them as one day you will be paying an estate agent fee when you sell a property.