Seller wants to complete the sale but stay in the house

pinkteapot

As there's no mortgage surely you can remove the clause about vacant possession if you want? Or tell your solicitor you're happy to proceed without vacant possession. Normally mortgage companies require vacant possession, but that's irrelevant in this case.

You say you're buying it as a second home - if that's with the intention of letting it out then surely there's no problem with the vendor being your first tenant. To protect yourself this should of course be done properly with a 6-month AST (the shortest a tenancy can be) and obviously you'd have all the legal obligations of a landlord. About ten years ago I sold a flat I owned and lived in with the intention of going into rented before looking for a new house. As it happened the flat sold to a cash buyer looking for a BTL, so I sold to them and rented it back, which was great! 

There may be another alternative... Although people on here will jump to "never let a seller stay in the house after completion, or a buyer move in before completion", it does happen in reality. Either through gentlemen's agreements or through proper agreements drawn up by solicitors. Your solicitor can advise.

Really comes down to why you're buying the house and whether you're definitely going to need it off him on a particular date in the future. Bear in mind new-builds can be - and usually are - delayed, so he may be staying longer than he currently thinks. 

jim_walton

Thanks pinkteapot. I am buying it rent out.  I’m happy for the vendor to be the tenant. But he thinks that saying the house is for sale without vacant possession gives him some sort of protection. He mistakenly thinks I will kick him out soon as the deal is complete. 

Meh123

If you were buying the property as your own home I’d say absolutely not!
however if you want to rent it out anyway....I’d be requesting/demanding that the property is sold vacant possession,  and that a tenancy agreement will be signed by him on the day of completion or bye bye 👋🏻 

ccfc1972

I posted a thread earlier about something similar, although I'm on the other side of the fence, so to speak.
Our buyers' mortgage offer expires in the middle of January. The house we are buying may not be able to complete until the end of January. I was considering asking our buyers if they would be happy to complete and not take possession until a couple of weeks later. Ideally, we would just have a completion date we are all happy with, but if their mortgage offer expires they will be screwed (apparently they can't renew it). 

phoebe1989seb

I know most people think it's a bad idea, but it does happen and not always with unwelcome results as some people can be trusted 😮

When we sold our last house our buyers had a few issues and although they were buying under an auction contract - sale agreed post auction - they couldn't exchange on the agreed date. In addition we were buying a repossession (cash buyers and didn't have a mortgage on the house we were selling, although did need that money to buy) and there were a few delays with that too.

In the end our sale was ready to exchange/complete before our purchase. Our - very considerate - buyers offered for us to stay in our old house post completion for three weeks. Just a gentleman's agreement with no tenancy/contract drawn up. Iirc we paid them £100 PW (large four bed detached house) which is what they suggested. 

We were moving our (very many) worldly possessions into storage ahead of a lengthy renovation project and we began the removals once exchange had taken place (completion was a couple of days after exchange), so that by the time the three weeks were up it was more or less just us and a car full of small stuff to go. Being honest people, we stuck to our side of the bargain and parted from our buyers on very good terms......

We even shared a bottle of champagne with them 

It's not always doom and gloom!

AskAsk

say you will rent the house to him.

jim_walton

Thanks Phoebe1989seb. That all sounds perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately it looks like I’m going to have to get him to sign a short term tenancy agreement and get it included in the sales contract. 

SpiderLegs

I don’t think I could be bothered with the potential hassle of this plan. Certainly not for a hundred quid a week.

eidand

so basically you're buying a house with tenants on site .... it's all good if this was what you were after!

Marvel1

No, you will be a landlord, and will need to comply with all the rules that come with it.