Buying house from messy tenants!

Bantex_2

Annie1960 wrote: »

Do you know how many other offers have been made for the property? How strong is your bargaining power?

That is the most important thing.

londonmaiden

Jason74 wrote: »

In terms of the issue itself, in terms of cleaning generally, I would agree with those who have suggested that you are buying "as seen", and that a request for cleaning is unlikely to be successful. I think it is however reasonable to regard infestation as another matter. There may be a little bit of room for negotiation on that basis, either in terms of getting the vendor to deal with the problem, or with a little bit of money off. The only problem you have is that if you offered having already seen the moue issue, the vendor / EA might take the view that this was already factored in to your offer.

We are not looking for any money off nor will we reduce our offer, we are merely asking for the vendor to assist with us not being left with a house infested with vermin and full of his tenants crap that they can't be arsed to move. As jjlandlord said hopefully vacant possession means this should be part of the deal.

Annie1960 wrote: »

Australia should not be a problem - can you (or the EA) take some photos and email them to the vendor? Maybe there are photos already on Rightmove? Come to think of it, the EA is required to get the vendor to agree all marketing information (including photos) so the vendor should already be aware of the state of the property, but maybe not the mice.

If the vendor is abroad, perhaps the best option might be to reduce your offer so you can get the work done yourself. That way you know it will be done to a proper standard as you can control it. In my view, there is a huge difference between the house being messy, and vermin. You are, after all, wanting vacant possession, and you won't get that if there are mice!

Do you know how many other offers have been made for the property? How strong is your bargaining power?

There are only 3 photos on Rightmove, the odd thing is, we rent off the same letting agent and we have 4 interim inspections each year, clearly they don't otherwise I don't think they would still be living there.
There were 2 offers prior to us which were both considerably low, I cannot go through losing another house so I don't want to lower our offer at this stage, just hope that we can reach some kind of mutual agreement, sans mice!!

45002 wrote: »

Tennats dont have to vacate until bailiffs remove them with a valid possession order ....

londonmaiden

Can I ask.

What type of tenancy do the tenants have and

Do you know how long the tenants having been living there for, the date they 1st moved in ?

oh.....I am not sure, assured shorthold I would assume? They have been served 2 months notice and we have been assured they are looking for somewhere else. I believe they have been living there for about 5 years. The cynic in me thinks they may have put the dead mouse in the middle of the carpet to try and put us off!

londonmaiden

Bantex wrote: »

Just being realistic.
Where I am prices are going up at a 15% per year.
If similar where you are the vendor can probably remarket (as is) and get 5 or 10 thousand more than your offer from a cash investor.
Is it worth the risk for the sake of giving the place a clean up?

True and no it's not worth the risk at all but it was merely an opening negotiation not a deal breaker, if the vendor is reasonable then we are just trying to avoid shelling out more cash ourselves than we need to. He may well turn round and tell us to do one which is fair enough but thought it worth an ask!

bargainbetty

There is also a vast difference between a couple of dead mice and an infestation. Perhaps you should consider asking for a pest control check to be carried out too. If there really is an infestation, I wouldn't want to consider exchanging prior to it being properly treated and cleared by Environmental Health officers.

45002

londonmaiden wrote:

We are not looking for any money off nor will we reduce our offer, we are merely asking for the vendor to assist with us not being left with a house infested with vermin and full of his tenants crap that they can't be arsed to move. As jjlandlord said hopefully vacant possession means this should be part of the deal.


There are only 3 photos on Rightmove, the odd thing is, we rent off the same letting agent and we have 4 interim inspections each year, clearly they don't otherwise I don't think they would still be living there.
There were 2 offers prior to us which were both considerably low, I cannot go through losing another house so I don't want to lower our offer at this stage, just hope that we can reach some kind of mutual agreement, sans mice!!


oh.....I am not sure, assured shorthold I would assume? They have been served 2 months notice and we have been assured they are looking for somewhere else. I believe they have been living there for about 5 years. The cynic in me thinks they may have put the dead mouse in the middle of the carpet to try and put us off!

The fact you been assured they are looking for somewhere could take ages, doesn't amount to much ...



Tenants have been served with 2 months notice doesn't mean they have to move out at the end of that notice...

Assuming the s21 notice is correct and so on

LL/LA would have to go to court and get possession order.

If Tenants don't move out by date order by court, LL/LA would have to go back to court and ask for warrant for bailiffs to remove tenants lawfully.

Tenants don't have to move out until bailiffs remove them ...

This all takes time...

By the time the property is vacant, I suspect six months on your mortgage will be up by then !

Or you could buy the property with the tenants still in place and serve them notice and so on ...

londonmaiden

Well it does sound like a minefield but hopefully this is the worst case scenario and we might be lucky. I'm not sure what to think, the tenants have agreed to do about 7 viewings on the property so wouldn't have thought they would have been so accommodating if they were going to cause an issue?

PasturesNew

The bottom line is that you can ask for XYZ to occur and you can do the inspection after the tenants have left.... but if what you ask for hasn't happened then it'll cost you more to pursue it legally.

So, on balance, it's best/cheaper/less effort/less stress if you simply hope the tenants do the right thing and tidy/clean up (to get their deposit back) and then view it before exchange and be happy with it if it's not all that bad at all.

Solicitors cost a FORTUNE to try to recoup what's likely to be a total cost of under £100.

londonmaiden

PasturesNew wrote: »

The bottom line is that you can ask for XYZ to occur and you can do the inspection after the tenants have left.... but if what you ask for hasn't happened then it'll cost you more to pursue it legally.

So, on balance, it's best/cheaper/less effort/less stress if you simply hope the tenants do the right thing and tidy/clean up (to get their deposit back) and then view it before exchange and be happy with it if it's not all that bad at all.

Solicitors cost a FORTUNE to try to recoup what's likely to be a total cost of under £100.

Yes the least stressful option the better, that is of course if the tenants move out at all! I don't think they've hoovered in 5 years! :shocked:

Bantex_2

Also get a cat if you move in.

45002

londonmaiden wrote:

Yes the least stressful option the better, that is of course if the tenants move out at all! I don't think they've hoovered in 5 years! :shocked:

londonmaiden wrote:

Well it does sound like a minefield but hopefully this is the worst case scenario and we might be lucky. I'm not sure what to think, the tenants have agreed to do about 7 viewings on the property so wouldn't have thought they would have been so accommodating if they were going to cause an issue?

Maybe you will be lucky and get vacant possession

Or

They just doing that to keep you and currently LL/LA happy and delay the exit for as long as legally possible !