How do you do the house move from mortgage to rental in terms of timings etc

Counting_Pennies_2

I wonder if you can help.

We are in a situation where we have a buyer for our house, but no longer have a house available for us to buy.

So we will be moving into rental.

The problem is there are no rentals in the narrow area we need to move to at the moment. One comes up on average per month.

The problem we have is that we have to stay in this narrow area for our children's school, one of whom will be starting this September. It is an oversubscribed school, and while as a sibling our DD will get in, we have to stay in catchment, otherwise we will forfeit our place.

Clearly if we secure a rental before exchange and the chain falls through, we will be liable for 6 months rent.

So I need to come up with a plan that enables exchange to happen at the point of us signing up for a rental.

There are just two links in the chain (3 separate households in total).

So my thoughts were to ask the two other households to get their searches and surveys completed within the coming month, and have their solicitors ready for exchange, and then as soon as a property for rent comes up in the area, we can all exchange and sign up for the rental at the same time, therefore no one risking, incurring any needless costs.

What do you think?

Thanks

Jenniefour

Depends how many people are in the chain and whether everyone would be willing to have a long stop completion (I think that's what it's called). A friend did this recently when she was in same postion - had a buyer and was looking for a rental. She arranged with her buyers to have completion 'on or before' a particular date. It worked - she found herself somewhere to rent, then they completed. She also ended up with an overlap of one week - which suited her fine because she had a week to move out into her rental before completion - local move so no mad rush. If she hadn't found somewhere before the end completion date she was just going to put everything in storage and stay with a friend for a while.

And you also have the option of more time between exchange and completion - normally it's four weeks but it can be varied either way to suit the people involved. So would everyone be willing to consider, say, a period of 6 or 8 weeks between exchange and completion.

Counting_Pennies_2

Jenniefour wrote: »

Depends how many people are in the chain and whether everyone would be willing to have a long stop completion (I think that's what it's called). A friend did this recently when she was in same postion - had a buyer and was looking for a rental. She arranged with her buyers to have completion 'on or before' a particular date. It worked - she found herself somewhere to rent, then they completed. She also ended up with an overlap of one week - which suited her fine because she had a week to move out into her rental before completion - local move so no mad rush. If she hadn't found somewhere before the end completion date she was just going to put everything in storage and stay with a friend for a while.

And you also have the option of more time between exchange and completion - normally it's four weeks but it can be varied either way to suit the people involved. So would everyone be willing to consider, say, a period of 6 or 8 weeks between exchange and completion.

Thanks

The problem is it is too much of a variable. We need to have everyone ready for when a rental comes up. The rentals are rare.

With children it also is not possible to just bunk on someones floor

silvercar

What will happen if everyone has rushed to get things in place and then you can't find a rental. People tend to become unhappy when they have put effort into meeting a deadline and then are expected to wait.

Jenniefour

I appreciate your situation has it's complexities and I don't think there's an easy answer. I think you will be very fortunate indeed to get both parties to agree that they will exchange at exactly the same time you sign your rental agreement - this would be an extremely lucky bonus indeed if they do agree. Which is why I made two suggestions that would have meant your signing a rental agreement after exchange - when you know the sale is secure. However, there's no harm in asking if they are willing to do as you suggest.

The scarcity of rental properties in the area you need to be in may mean that you need to be willing to consider taking on a less than ideal/desirable rental property in order to make it all work. But I imagine that if you let both sets of buyers know that they may well be more amenable to whatever proposal you decide to make to them.

Hope all goes well.

satchmeister

Jenniefour wrote: »

I appreciate your situation has it's complexities and I don't think there's an easy answer. I think you will be very fortunate indeed to get both parties to agree that they will exchange at exactly the same time you sign your rental agreement - this would be an extremely lucky bonus indeed if they do agree. Which is why I made two suggestions that would have meant your signing a rental agreement after exchange - when you know the sale is secure. However, there's no harm in asking if they are willing to do as you suggest.

The scarcity of rental properties in the area you need to be in may mean that you need to be willing to consider taking on a less than ideal/desirable rental property in order to make it all work. But I imagine that if you let both sets of buyers know that they may well be more amenable to whatever proposal you decide to make to them.

Hope all goes well.

If rentals are that scarce then why not find a rental and then when you are ready to move in to the owned property find new tenants to replace you (at your expense) at the rental. There will be some void and finders fees but this would make the situation workable. Trying to keep the chain together when you are making yourself unproceedable will be difficult. At some point the other in the chain will call time.

pmlindyloo

We were in exactly the same situation as you are.

You cannot sign a tenancy agreement because, as you say, you would be liable for six months rent.

However, you can pay a holding deposit to secure a rented property and if everything fell through you would just lose this. (Best not to do this until the solicitor says that you will be exchanging 'in the next few days')

We put on the form (sorry, can't remember what it was called) that we would need a minimum of 4 weeks after exchange and before completion. (If you do this check with your solicitor that this is made clear to your buyer.)

In fact, our buyer wasn't told about the 4 weeks (!) and pushed for an earlier date (they were going on holiday!!). In the end we found somewhere to rent and compromised on the completion date.

We had our buyer's telephone number which, I must say, may things much easier to negotiate dates (estate agent did not know what was going on!)

I hope you will find that things go smoothly. On the whole, after exchange, completion date can be
negotiated to suit everyone and most people are very accommodating.

Good luck - it's a hairy time I know!

Jenniefour

"On the whole, after exchange, completion date can be
negotiated to suit everyone and most people are very accommodating."

Just to make clear your point - completion can be agreed to suit everyone but the date or end date on completion must be agreed prior to exchange.