Simple move taking too long- advice

Simon11

Hi All

I would appreciate if you could give some advise on my situation.

This property is a 1 bedroom flat, which is owned by a landlord with a tenant in the property (2 months rolling contract). There is no others in the chain.

The timescales are as follows:
-Start of February agreed price
-Start of March Mortgage arranged, including signing & valuation completed
-9th March asked to proceed into the freeholders requirement for a licence to Assign (LTA). Requesting £525 + VAT for this.
-12th March- I request for the solicitor to ask freehold landlord solicitor why this high for a LTA & enquire about extending the lease (65yrs currently)
-31st March- Chase my solicitor for an update. Yet to hear anything so my solicitors send another letter
-8th April- Wanting to proceed quicker, informed my solicitor that I will pay this amount & provide information
-20th April- Solicitor has payment & received bank reference, but nothing from the freehold solicitor


I'm not in a major rush to move (living at home), however I have two concerns:
- If the freehold landlord solicitors are this painfully slow, will this mean the service provided by the management company will also be poor? Will I face major issues with extending the lease?
- At the moment, I have invested around £240 in searches and £1.5k in the mortgage agreement. I will loose this £1.5k if I do not complete by 25th Aug- 4 months away.(factor into account that I may wait 2 months for the tenant to be evicted).

I think that it would be best to wait until the end of April. Should there be no progress or developments from the freehold landlord solicitor, should I threaten to pull out? Hopefully this would put pressure on my solicitor & the vendor to chase this loose end.

What would you advise?

camptownraces

It's not clear what you want to do with this flat; do you want to live in it yourself? or do you want to let it to another tenant?

Either way, it could take a lot longer than two months for the current landlord to get vacant possession. It could be five or more months if he has to go to court to get a possession order.

Has the vendor already served notice on the tenant? Do you know when the notice will expire?

Would your mortgage offer cover the situation where you don't get vacant possession?

Simon11

To clarify, this is for me to live in.

I'm yet to find out the date of the eviction, but I know the tenant was informed in February.

Not sure about mortgage offer cover, but I would only sign the final papers to purchase the property after viewing the property after the tenant leaves to ensure it is in the same condition as before.

phoebe1989seb

Agree with camptownraces.....a few years back we bought a house that was set up as four fiats and two of the tenants had to be evicted. This took several months - in the end we completed on our sale and had to move in with family for nearly two months until the vendor got vacant possession and we could complete on the purchase.

Iirc our offer was accepted in the March/April and we completed mid September.

fairy_lights

Simon11 wrote: »

I'm yet to find out the date of the eviction, but I know the tenant was informed in February.

'Informed' is not the same as 'served notice'...

cr1mson

I would disagree that this is a simple move. The property is tenanted and therefore you need to wait until the tenant has moved out. If they have been given notice correctly they may move out as expected however if they don't landlord will have to go to court to evict which takes time.

Secondly with regard to the lease are your mortgage lenders aware of the shortness of the lease i.e. 65 years?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

No, this is not a simple purchase- you have no guarantee the tenant will move when it's convenient for you. Has your solicitor mentioned the crucial words "vacant possession" yet? Expect more delays.