Co-ordinating sale of house with going into rented

amandacat

I’ll be moving into rented initially after selling me house. It’s going to be challenging finding somewhere with pets so may take a while and I won’t want to sign a tenancy agreement until exchange. 
Normally I’d ask for 4 weeks between exchange and completion but people are not advising this due to Covid. 
Any advice please on how to best plan this? Thanks 

dimbo61

You may have to pay rent and the mortgage on your existing home for a period of time.
Having a 2/3 week overlap gives you time to move into the new rental and clear/clean your home ready for the new owners.
The stress of exchange/completion and moving all on the same day is enough to give anyone grey hair.
Finding a rental that accept pets is your first obstacle 

youth_leader

My house was due to go into auction in March and I'd signed up for the 4 week exchange/completion, ie I'd have to be out by the end of April.  I started looking in early January and saw one place owned by the local Diocese, they chose a couple over me, a widow.  I was quite shocked, to be honest.  When I found this cottage I did ask the agent to approach the landlord about pets and I offered to pay a bigger deposit - they agreed to take my pets without.  It is only ten doors away from my property.   It became available on 7 February, earlier than I wanted, but I took it for six months, I've just renewed for another six months.  Although I had to pay council tax and bills for both, it was so lucky I was so close.  My auction buyer asked for eight weeks, ie the end of May, and I lost my removals booking, couldn't book because of Covid, so had to move down here on my own.  Good luck.

amandacat

As I approach closer to exchange I’m getting worried hearing the horror stories about not exchanging and completing on the same day. 
But if I sign a six month rental before exchange and my buyer pulls out, I’m stuck paying on a rental property for 6 months that I can’t move to. 
Is my only option to ask for a gap between exchange and completion? 

hazyjo

You could perhaps stay elsewhere for a few days, week, fortnight or whatever and then arrange a rental. Not ideal, but better than losing 6 months' money (along with paying two lots of bills, etc).

badger09

amandacat said:

As I approach closer to exchange I’m getting worried hearing the horror stories about not exchanging and completing on the same day. 
But if I sign a six month rental before exchange and my buyer pulls out, I’m stuck paying on a rental property for 6 months that I can’t move to. 
Is my only option to ask for a gap between exchange and completion? 

Have you actually found anywhere which will you can rent for 6 months? We found it impossible as everyone wanted minimum 12 months. Fortunately we've been offered a lifeline of temporary furnished accommodation. Not ideal as its in Wales & over an hour away, but beggars can't be choosers.

Ironically we did have one semi positive response from EA for landlord of a newbuild, who said he would offer to us for 6 months if his prospective tenant didn't check out. Had an email this morning  - are we still interested?. 

Have you looked at airBnB or holiday lets? A poster has reported that some owners will do reasonable deals for longer lets

amandacat

Hi and thanks for your replies. Having looked on rightmove for the area we are moving to, there seem to be a fair few that say an initial term of 6 months. It wouldn't be the end of the world if we had to agree to 12 months it’s just we hoped to buy and don’t know the area so didn’t want to be stuck in a bad area for a year. 
I checked our air bnb, thanks for the tip. Not much about currently on there in the area we’re moving to.