Short Term Rental on House we are purchasing

Zac1972

We are moving out of our current property on 12th August as our buyer was going to pull out of the sale if we didnt as her tenancy agreement is up and we have already had to move the date 3 times so she is getting very fed up , and as we got £10k more than expected for the house we didn't want to lose her so agreed and have exchanged on our sale (so definite completion date).

Our purchase is held up as building regulations were not obtained on a garage conversion, our seller needs to get a regularisation certificate from the council before we will exchange, we wouldn't accept indemnity insurance as from our survey it looks as if some corners may have been cut and we want our seller to put these right before we proceed. We were going to put our belongings into storage, and stay at my in-laws which fills me with dread but it was the only thing we could think of doing. Anyhow Our seller previously rented out the Property before putting it up for sale so is an experienced landlord and the estate agent must have told him that we will technically be homeless from the 12th August and he has offered for us to rent the property on a weekly basis until we complete - he will draw up proper paperwork if we agree & it will all go through our solicitors. It seems like the 'easiest' thing for us to do, no storage, no in-laws and a chance to ensure everything is ok with the house before exchange, sounds like we'd be in the driving seat. Has anyone done this before? Is there anything I should be ensuring is in that tenancy agreement, we wouldn't be willing to exchange until we are certain the building regs were sorted and are hoping it would all be sorted by September at the latest.

I had been looking for short term rental elsewhere when this was suggested so would this be any different to us renting another property on a short term basis.

G_M

If the seller is willing to do this, and you are happy with the rent etc, then why not. The risk is primarily his. He could be stuck with you as he cannot evict a tenant in the first 6 months, making a sale to anyone else hard if you end up not purchasing.

But you have already taken on the real risk - that your purchase falls through and you are left long-term renting. You seem to be assuming that all the issues will be resolved and it is just a matter of timing.

If you think 'corners have been cut', do you expect the seller to be able to get BR regularisation without improvement works, or even demolishion and re-building?

And if corners were cut here, where else? Are you sure this property is a good buy?

Getting a seller to 'put things right' tends to be a bad idea. He has no real incentive to do more than the bare minimum, using the cheapest contractors (cutting more corners). I suppose that if you are renting and on-site, at least you'll see what's beng done!