Buyers want me to show tenants round

livinginhope

blooming cheek!Them renting out the house is nothing to do with you,what they do with it after completion is up to them and they shouldn't get you involved,I agree about people with no interest in the sale of your HOME,coming round eyeing up your belongings only to come round and rob you later.I would call the buyers bluff and say naff off to people of no importance to you coming round.Don't let them bully you.

Tassotti

Totally Agree with the above 2 posts.

What if they cannot find a tenant for four months? They will keep delaying exchange until they do.

As Lynz said, if they are experienced BTLetters, they will know the local demand in the rental market.

If they are getting a BTL mortgage, then I doubt the gifted deposit will be allowed. Lenders are clued up now to this type of activity and will nip it in the bud.

It's your HOME, obviously you don't want to lose the sale, but DON'T let them show tenants around the place.

Tass

Jorgan_2

Agree with Tass, doubt very much that a vendor gifted deposit will be allowed on a BTL mortgage. We sometimes get involved with vendor gifted deposits & it certainly limits the no of lenders that a buyer cab approach.

The other concern with a vendor gifted deposit is if the property will now stand up, on valuation, by the surveyor? Raising the price like this means the EA will have to change his details if/when the surveyor contacts them.

Getting back to the OP, it is a difficult situation to be in. Is your buyer looking to show just a couple of people around or are they expecting to show all potential tenants around? If you agree to let them show some temants around, set a limit as to how many & it is at a time to suit you & you expect the agent to be there to accompany the viewings.

angeleyes

mspig wrote:

My worry would be that you show tenants around the house and none of them want it, would the buyer pull out as he/she can't find tenants.
I would make sure contracts are exchanged first before letting tenants around.

This kinda happened with ours. they wanted ours as a btl and put an offer in we accepted and they then sneakly put an ad in the paper for tenants cos they got no response (in 1 wk) they pulled out even after the survey was done and no probs gutted and still trying to sell cos they wanted a quick sale after they offered we started looking found the perfect one offer accepted and now still waiting to sell not sure if the people we will buy off will hold on !

irnbru_2

gringo80 wrote:

I told the EA that it was inconvenient and that i felt it should be the buyers responsibility to get tenants when they actually own the house and was told their response was that if we didn't agree to this, it would jeopardise the sale.

I would object. Surely as BTLs they know their market?

You could of course charge them, refunding it on completion :-)

gringo80

Thanks for all your replies, it's nice to know that i'm not getting worked up for no reason!

Jorgan - you're right about the valuation. The surveyor seemed to know about the gifted deposit though and asked me alot of questions about the local rental market when he came round. Houses in this area do rent well, but due to the gifted deposit, the buyers will have to charge more than the average rent for the area to cover their mortgage. so this might put prospective tenants off?

I have a copy of the valuation and it seems the mortgage company are happy with all this, although they do place the valuation at the very top of what's acceptable for the area.

I'm annoyed that i even have to spend time worrying about this. I guess that's just house selling for you though!

I will ceratinly limit the number of people that are shown round - they have to accept that it's inconvenient for us. I hope!

Jorgan_2

A higher rent being asked may put tenants off, rents can be negotiated tho. Does your buyer have their mortgage offer yet?

gringo80

Yes as far as i know! The valuation didn't raise any concerns other than some generalised damp (it is an old property but has a guaranteed damp proof course) which we're looking in to. Would this need to be resolved before they could get a mortgage offer?

clutton_2

"generalised damp" is probably found in most houses - this should not affect their mortgage offer - worst case scenario they lender MIGHT put a retention on the amount of funds released until the work is done, but, i doubt it very much, especially as there is a damp guarantee in place. good luck

nrsql

The reason for increasing the asking price is to increase mortgage on the property so the buyers have less money tied up. The mortgage is based on the lower of the valuation/purchase price (and rental value for buy to lets).
The other thing they could do is re-mortgage after the puchase in which case it would not be based on the purchase price but incur more fees. (Mortgage companies differ).

Sounds like they are trying to get a tenant set up. It's in their interest to let the property as quickly as possible. I don't expect the sale will depend on the prospective tenants reaction. They will already have researched the rental values in the area.

A concern would be that as you haven't exchanged you have no completion date. From their point of view it would be better to complete a couple of days before a tenant was able to move in. They might be getting a tenant lined up then set the completion date depending on that. The problem is that they will want to set the date which might b too early of late for you.

Make sure they tell the viewers you have arranged that there is no date as yet when they might be able to move in.
You could also ask them to lodge money with your solicitor which you retain if they drop out of the sale - but that's probably not worth the effort - just don't allow any more tenant viewing until exchange (they might pretend that they are family members or such but there's not much you can do about that).