Buying a house that has tenants in it

fc123

Update; my LL popped into the EA's on his way down to the house.
Tenant has agreed to leave today as he found somewhere else and he has agreed to leave in an 'orderly' way so he gets his envelope.

I am waiting on their say so and we exchange.

We complete during the day Friday and will be @ the house before completion takes place. Sol ssaid to call him to say OK.
Will be meeting the vendor @ the house for the keys.....we will check under all the floorboards.

I heard the same thing that it is a mahoosive problem for the vendor if he has not got VP on completion day.

kwmlondon

sinbad182 wrote: »

Everyone appreciates that.

The fact you're not getting is that the solicitor is only responsible for acting correctly on your instructions.

If you check the place is empty and instruct him to exchange, but then find the tenants were actually hiding under the floorboards or moved back in before completion its not suddenly down to the solicitor. You seem to be trying to convince yourself that your solicitor's presence will absolve you of any responsibility or risk in the transaction.

He will act in your interests when resolving the issue and ensuring you're properly compensated, but he wont suddenly be ultimately responsible for a hugely unlikely and unpredictable turn of bad luck.

I take your point.

My belief, though, is that in the instance of the tenants hiding up the chimney and magically reappearing an hour before I move in my recourse is to my solicitor.

They can't magic the tenants out of there any more than they can drive over an hour before and check the place is empty. However, my understanding is that they will advise me, act on my behalf to bring action against the seller of the property and negotiate compensation. Which is the most I could expect from anyone, but it's also the least I would expect them to do.

I'm assuming they will be treating the possibility of the property not being vacant the same way they'd treat the possibility of the property turning out to have every single light switch and door taken, or the roof having been blown down or all the windows being smashed.

My understanding is that they would be able to pursue the seller for breach of contract, and organise compensation at a later date, but it would be up to me to contend with the reality of the situation.

I accept this, as would anyone who is buying a property. It's a risk you have to take, and have some kind of way of coping with. Sure, I'll do everything I can to mitigate the risk, but I do accept that it's a possibility.

kwmlondon

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

If the curtains are all drawn, how would you know the property is definitely empty?

I'm going to arrange with the EAs to view the place. I want to see inside. I may even ask to have one of the lock barrels replaced (I'd pay £5 myself for the peace of mind).

kwmlondon

StuC75 wrote: »

Do consider that the vendor may be hesitant to remove the tenants prior to exchange - since at that time he has nothing that binds you to completing the sale - he could tell you theyve moved out - and you then say 'dont want to proceed'.. (hes then left with an empty property!)...

Is it not normally the case the completion cannot occur without vacant possesion being provided. which is then the vendors problem if they are unable to provide that in time?

If he did this the sale would fall through. He has to give a months notice to the tenants. There could be just a couple of days between exchange and completion and the tenants will not move out in that time. I cannot instruct my solicitors to exchange until I've seen the property is empty.

My understanding is that he takes ultimate legal responsibility for selling me an empty property and my solicitors are responsible for ensuring compliance with that contract. He could renege, and if he did my conveyancers would not be able to do much except take him to court, but his own solicitors would also be drawn into the fracas.

It would be an unholy mess that nobody would wish to get into. Least of all me.

Angie_B

kwmlondon wrote: »

If he did this the sale would fall through. He has to give a months notice to the tenants. There could be just a couple of days between exchange and completion and the tenants will not move out in that time. I cannot instruct my solicitors to exchange until I've seen the property is empty.

My understanding is that he takes ultimate legal responsibility for selling me an empty property and my solicitors are responsible for ensuring compliance with that contract. He could renege, and if he did my conveyancers would not be able to do much except take him to court, but his own solicitors would also be drawn into the fracas.

It would be an unholy mess that nobody would wish to get into. Least of all me.

By law, the landlord has to give two months notice, not one. If he serves one month notice and then goes to court for a possession order, his case will be thrown out and he will have to start again with the proper two months notice.

Even if it says one month in the tenants' contract, it is irrelevant and does not override law. The correct notice period is two months, whether the seller likes it or not.

fc123

We've exchanged and the vendor has moved in a 'friend' to stay there until completion. This bothers our solicitor but after a few calls we confimed the 'friend' isn't tenant, he is just going to keep an eye BUT he hasn't changed the locks as he didn't want the expense. Daft of him if you ask me but still....this is a landlord/owner who doesn't put his hand in his pocket for anything.

Wanted to complete Thursday but his religion says it is bad luck to do business on a Thursday so going to be Friday.

Plan is meet him @ 11am, go into house ring solicitor and complete, then wait until locksmith arrives.

He is clearing a lot of stuff out of house today and will continue Friday...and asked OH if he could help him (!?) take stuff to the dump as he also doesn't want the expense of paying for rubbish clearance. OH said nicely that he will probably not be able to assist him clearing the house.

sinbad182

kwmlondon wrote: »

I take your point.

My belief, though, is that in the instance of the tenants hiding up the chimney and magically reappearing an hour before I move in my recourse is to my solicitor.

This is true, so long as you understand your recourse to your solicitor will be as a client - he has no ultimate responsibility other than to act correctly on the instruction you gave him to exchange.

They can't magic the tenants out of there any more than they can drive over an hour before and check the place is empty. However, my understanding is that they will advise me, act on my behalf to bring action against the seller of the property and negotiate compensation. Which is the most I could expect from anyone, but it's also the least I would expect them to do.

Yes, they do all this, as you are their client. It won't be because this bizarre turn of events is in anyway their responsibility.

I'm assuming they will be treating the possibility of the property not being vacant the same way they'd treat the possibility of the property turning out to have every single light switch and door taken, or the roof having been blown down or all the windows being smashed.

My understanding is that they would be able to pursue the seller for breach of contract, and organise compensation at a later date, but it would be up to me to contend with the reality of the situation.

I accept this, as would anyone who is buying a property. It's a risk you have to take, and have some kind of way of coping with. Sure, I'll do everything I can to mitigate the risk, but I do accept that it's a possibility.

I think you've got the gist of it now - people were taking issue with you as it came across like you we're considering this outcome to be something the solicitor should have guarded you against and is obliged to take responsibility for.

phoebe1989seb

Just wanted to add to this thread that we've also previously bought a house that had tenants in situ when we viewed. It was a private sale - long story, but only three houses built of this design (1888) in the area and we lost out on purchasing one, only to discover an acquaintance's FIL owned one of the other two. Problem was it had been divided into four flats and two of the tenants were refusing to budge - in fact when we viewed the house we were unable to see the downstairs as the tenant refused us and the LL entry!

We had an offer accepted (based on vacant possession), went ahead and marketed our house, had a structural survey done - the surveyor actually saw the downstairs flat before we did - and thought all was going well. The LL (who lived in the US) called us one day to say that despite serving notice two of the tenants had refused to leave and he wanted us to go halves with him in paying them a *bung* to leave. We weren't keen, but eventually agreed to contribute about £1000

In the meantime the LL suggested we move our furniture - and ourselves if we wanted - into one of the upstairs flats......not likely - not with a seven yr old child and a couple of unhappy tenants sharing the place with us!

Despite the bribe he still had to get a court order and bailiffs to get one of them out of the property. We even attended court to ensure the LL wasn't getting one over on us - he was a bit of a dodgy character. On eviction day DH and I sat outside the house in our car watching to check the last tenant had gone and did ensure we viewed the house before exchange went ahead. Our family solicitor strongly advised we do this - we weren't getting a mortgage so there was no input from a lender on that subject.

In the interim our house sale had completed and we spent six weeks living at my parents' house with our furniture in storage waiting for the eviction process - it all worked out ok in the end, but first thing we did on moving day was change the locks, just in case the tenants returned bearing a grudge against us

kwmlondon

sinbad182 wrote: »

This is true, so long as you understand your recourse to your solicitor will be as a client - he has no ultimate responsibility other than to act correctly on the instruction you gave him to exchange.



Yes, they do all this, as you are their client. It won't be because this bizarre turn of events is in anyway their responsibility.



I think you've got the gist of it now - people were taking issue with you as it came across like you we're considering this outcome to be something the solicitor should have guarded you against and is obliged to take responsibility for.

Sure, that's fair enough.

And I understand that not everyone will look through the oodles of posts that have gone before, and there's been a fair bit of to-and-fro on the issues.

In my defence, I'm only posting up what I get told by various parties as I come across it, e.g. the note on the surveyer's report. It's a process and there will be options and choices arising as it goes along.

I am genuinely grateful for people's input, especially those who have gone through protracted processes in the past (and currently) as it's incredibly useful to know.

There are inherent risks in buying a property. Some you can minimise, some you can totally protect against, and others you have to simply have a plan to contend with if it goes wrong and everyone's contributions are really helpful in understanding what the choices are and what the outcomes could be.

kwmlondon

Angie_B wrote: »

By law, the landlord has to give two months notice, not one. If he serves one month notice and then goes to court for a possession order, his case will be thrown out and he will have to start again with the proper two months notice.

Even if it says one month in the tenants' contract, it is irrelevant and does not override law. The correct notice period is two months, whether the seller likes it or not.

Well, I hope you are wrong, but you may be correct and if so it will be a two month notice period. It won't cause my any problems. Being frank I treat all dates set in any kind of property sale as being subject to change at any time so it makes little difference to me if the tenants move out in one month or two, the date of exchange just have to be after that date, whenever it is.