Best time to give notice when buying own property?

vaughanie89

Hi everyone,

Me and my partner are FTBs and are in need of some advice on when the best time will be for us to give the required months notice on our current rental agreement. Our rent is paid on 20th of each month and our situation is as follows:

- Offer accepted on house 16/02
- Full Mortgage application submitted 20/02
- Homebuyers survey and valuation completed (no issues) 09/03
- Solicitor began searches 10/03

Hopefully we should have our official mortgage offer from our lender at some point over the next week, and the solicitor has said that the searches should be done in a week or so too. We are FTBs and the property that we are buying is vacant so there is no chain involved.

The question is do we give the months notice on our rent before the 20th of this month and hope that completion date comes before April 20th (when our rental agreement would end), or do we hang on and not give the notice on the rent until we have completed exchange?

If we have our mortgage offer and all of the searches have been completed by the 20th of this month, then what would the chances be of completion happening within the next month?

Are there many more points at which we could potentially face a delay? Or is it just down to reaching exchange? Are most of the hurdles behind us at this point? Being a FTB and not knowing the process that well is so stressful when considering a decision like this!

How long did you wait to exchange once all searches/surveys etc had been completed?

This was my first post on MSE, so apologies if I'm being an annoying newbie! :rotfl:

G_M

Don't give notice till you have actually Exchangd Contracts on your purchase.

Your Exchange date can slip at any time as can Competion, or indeed the whole purchase can fall through at the last minute until you Exchange.

Request a longer gap between Exchange and Completion to allow for your tenancy notice period.

Tenancy notice is explained more here:

* Ending/renewing an AST: what happens when a fixed term ends? How can a LL or tenant end a tenancy? What is a periodic tenancy?

stator

Agree with above, definitely don't give notice until you have confirmation that you have exchanged contracts. Try to organise a completion date that suits you at the end of a rental period, or 1/2/3 weeks before. Personally I like a couple weeks to move

theartfullodger

After exchange: No earlier!

Rollinghills

I agree! All sorts of issues can come up at the last minute and if the owner finds another tenant for your flat you'll be in a difficult situation. After exchange you don't have to complete immediately, 2-3 weeks would be quite standard and probably you can ask for a bit more if you need to. You may want to have a week overlap to do some decorating etc.

scaredlady

totally agree with this.
Relative of mine was moving from rented to their own home. There was going to be no problems. Might even have had the keys over Christmas. Property they were buying had no chain at all.
Roll forward, they handed in the notice on their rented property. The leaving date from that property was fast approaching..no further forward with the purchase. They moved in with another relative 2 weeks ago, as no exchange of contracts and they had to leave rented property.
They exchanged contracts 2 days ago, and completed today. This was for a no problem purchase (supposedly)
As soon as I was told they had handed in their notice I quoted this webpage again and again. Do not hand in your notice until contracts are exchanged...you do not know what will spring up on you.

Rambosmum

Definitely don't give notice until you exchange. For the exchange you can stipulate the completion date, which you could have a week or two before your move out date, it means paying a week or two rent as well as mortgage but it saves the hassle of cleaning new house and rented house on the same day and handing keys back etc. Plus it gives you somewhere to sleep if you get to the new house and there's a gas leak/broken boiler/ and issues etc. (We had a gas leak and had to go to the rented house for the night whilst transco fixed it!).

vaughanie89

Thanks for the advice everyone, it seems like waiting until exchange will definitely be the right thing to do!

Vok_2

Also don't worry too much about your rent date of 20th. For example if you give your notice on the 25th, they will pro-rata your rent to suit

T0mmyh

But notice works on rental periods. Not just a month? Least I thought it did?

ViolaLass

Vok wrote: »

Also don't worry too much about your rent date of 20th. For example if you give your notice on the 25th, they will pro-rata your rent to suit

That's a very big assumption to make. The landlord would be under no obligation to do so although there's nothing to stop you asking. They would be entirely entitled to insist on full rent.