First time buying of a rented house

stmod

Hi all,
I am current renting a flat and I want to buy an house.

I found a good one, but it is rented from the owner.
I clearly said to the agency I am using that I need to move as soon as my mortgage starts because i cannot pay both renting and mortgage.

The agency told me the owner will give a notice for making the house free at the time. I said that could happen to have timing problem (the give the advice before I got the mortgage approved), but the agency told me this risk is in charge of the owner.

Have you any suggestion on how to safely manage this situation?
Is really so easy to give a notice and get rid of a tenant?
I fear that at the end of the day the owner will retreat the property from the market and I will have lost time and money (e.g for the property survey)

Finally, because I do not like as the agency is acting, there is a kind of rating of the property agency i can look at for understanding if the one I am using is ok (it is not so big).

Thanks for your help
stmod

BitterAndTwisted

If you are planning to buy this property with a mortgage the lender will not release the funds until your conveyancer can confirm that the property is vacant.

The current owner could issue the tenants with a S21 Notice, but that does not mean the tenants will leave if they are unwilling or unable to move. Then, the landlord will need to go to court to repossess.

To be honest, I'd keep looking. The issue of this property being occupied is for the vendor to resolve.

thelem

Assuming you are in England/Wales...

It can be very tricky to evict tenants if they don't want to leave. If you choose to continue with this property then insist that the tenants are served notice immediately - I wouldn't even spend money on surveys and conveyancing until they had at least been served notice. Once that has happened you should have a date that the property will be vacent by, and you can instructuct your solicitors to work to that as a target date for exchange. When that date comes you can then confirm that the property has been vacated, and instruct your conveyancer to exchange. This way you only risk your time and the money spent on surveys and conveyancing should the tenants prove tricky.

What is the situation with your current rental? Are you on a fixed term, or periodic (monthly) tenancy? If you are on a fixed term, then don't renew it when you come to the end of the term. You will automatically move to a periodic tenancy meaning you only need to give one month's notice. If the agency / landlord don't like that there is nothing they can do other than evict you, which doesn't really benefit anyone.

Yorkie1

The seller wants to keep tenants in place until the last possible moment, but as others have said this causes problems in knowing when the property will become free.

You cannot set the date for when the tenants leave the property. If they are still in the fixed period of the tenancy, the LL cannot get them out before the end of that fixed period unless there is something in the tenancy document which allows this.

In any event, if he has not yet given the tenants notice to leave, the expiry date of that notice is likely to be at least 2 months away - and if the tenants don't leave (as is their right) then a few more weeks or probably months before the court orders them to leave.

For these reasons, you will have to be patient and cannot exchange contracts to buy the place (point of no return) until the tenants are out. When you exchange contracts, you agree a date with the seller for the sale to actually occur / complete, and your solicitor will get the mortgage money from the lender.

G_M

Don't buy a property that currently is occupid by tenants. There are multipe reasons to avoid.

Keep looking.