We've withdrawn our offer!

D00gie72

Wow. And I thought my tale was complicated! This will keep me entertained for weeks.....

LisaLou1982

Sorry OP but i disagree with the majority on here.

It IS normal for tenants to not have notice served on them straightawat when a sale is agreed. Why would a landlord do that when he has no idea of when the sale is likely to go through?

From his, and the EA perspective - you havent gotten anywhere with the legal side yet nor have you had your survey, or got your mortgage offer. There would be no point in serving notice until the survey results had come through and they were more confident that you were happy with the property and the mortgage offer could be realeased.

Vacant possession on COMPLETION is what is required. It is not necessary for the property to be vacant on exchange or before. I purchased my first house from a landlord. His tenants were served notice and they moved out the week i completed. We exchanged the week before. They had been given notice.

Its all very well people on here spouting off about all sorts, but tbh, most of them have never been in that situation, nor do they have any idea of the true proceedings of a sale/purchase. Solicitors and EAs deal with more sales than anyone. As a collective, They know the process better than anyone. There are too many people on here who state that you should ignore the EA/Solicitor - are they legally trained? do they sell houses for a living? no....probably not.

FWIW, i was an EA for nearly 5 years. I had 1 sale in all that time that failed to complete on the completion day. The reason for that was because the money wasnt released up the chain fast enough due to a bank error. They had to go into a hotel for the weekend. Not the end of the world. It was sorted on the Monday morning and they werent out of pocket. Its an extremely small percentage of people that dont move out on the day that they are supposed to. That is just one of those risks you take in life. Same as anything else.

thequant

Ulfar wrote: »

Exchanging with sitting tenants is just a bad idea. If they don't leave by completion, it won't only be the vendor in breach of contract. You will be in breach also as the bank won't release the funds as there will be no vacant possession meaning you cannot pay.

Absolutely totally spot on!!


EEJAY, you don't realise if the tenants are not out, bank then refuses to release mortgage funds.


If you have exchanged, it's not them who has breached the contract if completion fails to happen. IT IS YOU!!


Whether your Mortgage company releases or not releases the funds, is not their responsibility. IT IS YOURS!

thequant

EEJAY, any chance you could keep this saga to one thread from now on?


Hopefully something good will come of this story. I hope at the conclusion the mods make it is sticky, as warning to others of how not to buy a house.


Good luck BTW, I do still have my fingers crossed for you that it works out.

jjlandlord

Ulfar wrote: »

Exchanging with sitting tenants is just a bad idea. If they don't leave by completion, it won't only be the vendor in breach of contract. You will be in breach also as the bank won't release the funds as there will be no vacant possession meaning you cannot pay.

No the buyer wouldn't be in breach: He would not complete, and thus not need to pay because the vendor is in breach.

LisaLou1982 wrote: »

Vacant possession on COMPLETION is what is required. It is not necessary for the property to be vacant on exchange or before.

When you exchange you are bound by contract to complete or face the consequences.
Let's say the landlord has the tenant from hell and spends 6+ months getting rid of them: Yes he would have to pay penalties but in the meantime the mortgage offer would lapse and the buyer would end up screwed.
During that time the tenant could also wreck the place, and the buyer would still have to complete.

Hence the usual advice from any professional not to exchange until the tenant has left...

DRP

OP, do you have any idea what information would be given on (the still missing) page 13 of the PIP?

Seems strange the vendor/ea has been so obliging with the rest of the document bar one page.

chucknorris

LisaLou1982 wrote: »

Sorry OP but i disagree with the majority on here.

It IS normal for tenants to not have notice served on them straightawat when a sale is agreed. Why would a landlord do that when he has no idea of when the sale is likely to go through?

From his, and the EA perspective - you havent gotten anywhere with the legal side yet nor have you had your survey, or got your mortgage offer. There would be no point in serving notice until the survey results had come through and they were more confident that you were happy with the property and the mortgage offer could be realeased.

Vacant possession on COMPLETION is what is required. It is not necessary for the property to be vacant on exchange or before. I purchased my first house from a landlord. His tenants were served notice and they moved out the week i completed. We exchanged the week before. They had been given notice.

Its all very well people on here spouting off about all sorts, but tbh, most of them have never been in that situation, nor do they have any idea of the true proceedings of a sale/purchase. Solicitors and EAs deal with more sales than anyone. As a collective, They know the process better than anyone. There are too many people on here who state that you should ignore the EA/Solicitor - are they legally trained? do they sell houses for a living? no....probably not.

FWIW, i was an EA for nearly 5 years. I had 1 sale in all that time that failed to complete on the completion day. The reason for that was because the money wasnt released up the chain fast enough due to a bank error. They had to go into a hotel for the weekend. Not the end of the world. It was sorted on the Monday morning and they werent out of pocket. Its an extremely small percentage of people that dont move out on the day that they are supposed to. That is just one of those risks you take in life. Same as anything else.

The problem with what you are proposing is that if the tenants do not move out, you cannot evict them in time for completion. When we sell our properties (we have 8 investment properties in addition to our home) there is no way that I would rely on the tenants to vacate between exchange and completion, I will not exchange until I have possession. Otherwise it might prove extremely costly if I have exchanged and the tenant does not move out. I realise that is an unlikely scenario, but it isn't impossible either, it has happened to me the other way around when I was buying.

Eejay

DRP wrote: »

OP, do you have any idea what information would be given on (the still missing) page 13 of the PIP?

Seems strange the vendor/ea has been so obliging with the rest of the document bar one page.

Yeah, it's the details about the tenants... However they have stated at the end of page 12 that there are other people living there which is an improvement on last time. The solicitor is going to get them to do that page - I don't understand why it's been left twice now but it will be covered in the contract too so they can't avoid it forever.

The backup plan if, worst case scenario, the tenants don't get out on time and we can't get the mortgage is family will make up the difference and we can sort out paying them back from there. I can still understand everyone's concerns and if we were in a situation where we only had a small deposit and were relying on the mortgage to get a place, we wouldn't take the risk, but my husband's lucky that his family are in a position to help him if he needs it. He's also going to have about £90,000 freed up if it all goes wrong so we will be able to continue renting if necessary without any worries.

zedmeister

Good god, what are you doing? I wouldn't walk from this, I'd RUN!

RUN!

You say you are prepared for the worst, well, no you are not. Try dealing with all this after you've had the baby where your emotions will be everywhere and you'll be sleep deprived and you start loosing money hand over fist. This sounds dodgier than a £9 note. There are plenty more properties out there and you'll find another one that is exactly what you want. Proceeding with this debacle is foolish.

sulphate

Eejay wrote: »

How is that interesting? This might not work out but at least we'll know within a few months. It's better than committing to living in a back-to-back terraced house, with a pathetic few feet of space at the front, for the next five years or so. I want our baby to have enough room to play in a paddling pool or kick a ball around. If it was just the two of us I wouldn't care so much about a garden, but it's not.

I'm not arguing with people's opinion on here - I agree that we are being pretty stupid about it, but at the end of the day he wants the house and I'm sick of looking, so he can go for it. If it goes wrong it'll have consequences, but nothing too major - nobody is going to go to prison or die as a result.

We live in a terrace and our garden is bigger than my in laws', who have a detached house.

I'm pregnant too, the idea of going through this problematic transaction with a newborn, or worse, having it fall through and have to house hunt at that stage, seems like a nightmare to me.

I could MAYBE understand your willingness to proceed if the tenants had been given notice but it sounds like that hasn't even happened.