buyer wants to rent before buying?

barbiedoll

If it's going to be her "2nd home", then why does she need to rent it? She obviously doesn't need a home in which to live, so what's the rush, why can't she just wait until she has the money available to buy a house, like everyone else has to?

Sounds like a tall tale to me, buyer living miles away, cash "tied up", wants to buy house without even viewing it? It's like those Gumtree car sales where a not-at-all suspicious gentleman wants to pay over the odds to buy your old banger, sight unseen, to ship abroad.

Avoid, avoid, avoid!

Marvel1

Do you want to be a landlord?
Do you know what the landlord does in terms of the law/responsibilities?
Do you know what rights the tenents have?
If you have a mortgage, you would need consent from your lender.

AnotherJoe

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

If an Estate Agent suggested this to me my only response would be "I request to be released from the contract we have as I have lost all confidence in you."

I think that's grossly unfair, indeed don't EAs actually have a legal duty to pass all offers on to you? (Unless perhaps you have given them explicit exclusions , say, to reject any offers under a specific price or reject any offers from people who want to try and buy)

The fact it's a terrible idea, which it absolutely is, doesn't mean the EA shouldn't pass it to you, otherwise they could be excluding all sorts of offers that for whatever reason, you might have accepted.

Ps Only proviso to this would be, the EA came up with the idea themselves. In which case yes I agree I'd be having serious doubts about them at the least.

davidmcn

AnotherJoe wrote: »

The fact it's a terrible idea, which it absolutely is, doesn't mean the EA shouldn't pass it to you, otherwise they could be excluding all sorts of offers that for whatever reason, you might have accepted.

I would at least expect the EA, to whom I'm paying a large chunk of money for their professional wisdom about how best to sell my property, to offer some advice about whether or not it's a terrible idea - rather than leave it up to me to ask weirdos on the internet what they think.

Thrugelmir

Hugh1983 wrote: »

I nearly asked if I should have expected more from my EA

EA is merely relaying a message. As an agent that's what you would expect them to do. Not their role to make arbitrary decisions on behalf of their clients. There's nothing to stop someone agreeing to such an arrangement. As it's not illegal. Whatever the majority may think.

DRP

something like this happened in our chain (successfully).

in our case it was a local family that we'd met, and not some random person from across the country.

So, yes it does happen.
Yes, it can be risky (as described above by others).
No, I wouldn't do it in the situation you describe unless there were major financial reassurances - perhaps talk to a solicitor.

Miss_Samantha

Of course it is possible to mitigate many of the risks by exchanging contract for the sale before allowing the buyer to move in. It might also be possible in that case to grant a license instead of a tenancy.
In any case, a competent solicitor must advise and draft the necessary documents.