Buying a house with problem tenants currently in situ

m0bov

Tell them to let you know once the property is vacant, but look elsewhere. Its a bit rich asking you for commitment when they are selling a property that's not vacant. It could take years.

Exodi

saajan_12 said:

It *could* be a risk for any tenant, as they have the right to stay until properly evicted by a court, involving exacting notice requirements and a long court backlog. 

Having said that, in my experience lots of tenants to just play ball and leave upon receiving notice / being asked nicely if they can afford it. On this forum we probably see more of the cases where it doesn't. 

HOWEVER in this case, if you say they are already 'problem tenants' and not following the AST already, then the risk is MUCH higher. So advice to not proceed until the tenants are out stands. In the meantime, continue to look elsewhere and keep this on the backburner, for whichever happens first (find another place or tenants leave this one). 

OP mentioned at the bottom of the first page that the tenants were many months in arrears.

I wouldn't touch this with a 100ft barge pole.

GoogleMeNow

LHZ said:

Bit of an update. I spoke to EA and they confirmed that the tenants were in arrears and that the landlord had begun the eviction process at the start of March. The end of notice period is 8th April. No court date has been given yet. The EA said he imagines the process taking up to 7 months worse case scenario. He also said that there were a number of similar cases ongoing within his portfolio.

Anyway, I said I've been advised not to proceed until the tenants are gone and he said that the vendor is likely to want to put the house back up for sale in that event. He said that she would want some commitment my side such as swapping solicitors details to draw up a memorandum of sale but that we wouldn't proceed further, and incur costs, until tenants were gone.

How does this sound? Is there a soft option for me to give the vendor some security or am I being dumb by even entertaining it? For what it's worth, I really like the property and I managed to get it at the asking price. I had bid £10k over asking on a similar property recently in the same street and got outbid.

Sorry, but the EA is plucking dates out of the sky.  The end of the notice period does not mean that the tenant will vacate.  It sounds like the landlord issued a Section 21, but has not yet applied to the court to start the eviction process.  Only the courts can evict the tenant and, as there is a long backlog, it may take many more than 7 months, especially if the Section 21 is found to be invalid.  Then the process starts again.  

If you want to give the vendor some 'security', you could instruct your preferred solicitor to open your file, but not to start any chargeable work until you say so.  You can then give your solicitor's contact details to the EA so they can issue the Memorandum of Sale to all parties.  The vendor's solicitor will issue the draft contract pack to your solicitor and the vendor and the EA will be happy that progress is being started.  Your solicitor may review the draft contract documents and be able to advise you whether or not it is a good idea to start spending money on searches and surveys immediately, or you can instruct them to write to the vendor's solicitor indicating that there will be no progress until the tenants have vacated.

eddddy

LHZ said:

Anyway, I said I've been advised not to proceed until the tenants are gone and he said that the vendor is likely to want to put the house back up for sale in that event. He said that she would want some commitment my side such as swapping solicitors details to draw up a memorandum of sale but that we wouldn't proceed further, and incur costs, until tenants were gone.

Swapping solicitors details sounds ok.

Just select your solicitor, but tell them not to proceed with any chargeable work until you give them further instructions.

You can still look at other properties. If you find another property you like, and get an offer accepted - you can back out of this one.

If you don't find any other properties you like, and the tenants eventually move out of this one, you just tell your solicitor to start work.

MobileSaver

LHZ said:

The end of notice period is 8th April. No court date has been given yet.

No court date has been given because the landlord cannot even apply to the court until after the notice period ends...

Personally I would keep looking, I have a horrible feeling that 7 months is actually the best case scenario and worst case could easily be over a year but who knows? I certainly wouldn't be spending money on this right now.

Exodi

LHZ said:

Bit of an update. I spoke to EA and they confirmed that the tenants were in arrears and that the landlord had begun the eviction process at the start of March. The end of notice period is 8th April. No court date has been given yet. The EA said he imagines the process taking up to 7 months worse case scenario. He also said that there were a number of similar cases ongoing within his portfolio.

Anyway, I said I've been advised not to proceed until the tenants are gone and he said that the vendor is likely to want to put the house back up for sale in that event. He said that she would want some commitment my side such as swapping solicitors details to draw up a memorandum of sale but that we wouldn't proceed further, and incur costs, until tenants were gone.

How does this sound? Is there a soft option for me to give the vendor some security or am I being dumb by even entertaining it? For what it's worth, I really like the property and I managed to get it at the asking price. I had bid £10k over asking on a similar property recently in the same street and got outbid.

Typical estate agent behaviour. So if it ends up taking more than their 7 month 'worse case scenario' - what then? A 'my bad' from the estate agent?

Also typical behaviour to softly threaten putting the house back on the market and requiring you to financially commit to the purchase (less chance you'll pull out if it drags on).

As has already been covered in this thread, unless you're willing to wait potentially years, don't commit anything to this purchase that you're not willing to throw into a bonfire.

They may put it on the market, and the new buyers may be willing to wait months, potentially years to get the tenants out, depends if it's worth it to you.

As I said, I've seen too many threads from buyers that get caught in this trap and regret it - unwilling to look elsewhere because they've sunk a few K into it.

Personally, I'd suggest the latter that you are being... naive... even considering it - it was entirely predictable the estate agent would do this, who do you think they are hired to help? Depends if you think the additional saving is worth the cost/time-saving.

I ultimately lay blame (as I usually do in this threads) on the seller. To list a house to be sold with vacant posession with tenants in situ - all so they can potentially save a few void months on rent? Completely selfish.

LHZ

GoogleMeNow said:

LHZ said:

Bit of an update. I spoke to EA and they confirmed that the tenants were in arrears and that the landlord had begun the eviction process at the start of March. The end of notice period is 8th April. No court date has been given yet. The EA said he imagines the process taking up to 7 months worse case scenario. He also said that there were a number of similar cases ongoing within his portfolio.

Anyway, I said I've been advised not to proceed until the tenants are gone and he said that the vendor is likely to want to put the house back up for sale in that event. He said that she would want some commitment my side such as swapping solicitors details to draw up a memorandum of sale but that we wouldn't proceed further, and incur costs, until tenants were gone.

How does this sound? Is there a soft option for me to give the vendor some security or am I being dumb by even entertaining it? For what it's worth, I really like the property and I managed to get it at the asking price. I had bid £10k over asking on a similar property recently in the same street and got outbid.

Sorry, but the EA is plucking dates out of the sky.

To be fair to the EA, he actually said that we dont know how long it will take but he's never known the process taking longer than 6 to 7 months.

Exodi

LHZ said:

GoogleMeNow said:

Sorry, but the EA is plucking dates out of the sky.

To be fair to the EA, he actually said that we dont know how long it will take but he's never known the process taking longer than 6 to 7 months.

Oh OP... you showed such promise at the start...

GoogleMeNow

LHZ said:

GoogleMeNow said:

LHZ said:

Bit of an update. I spoke to EA and they confirmed that the tenants were in arrears and that the landlord had begun the eviction process at the start of March. The end of notice period is 8th April. No court date has been given yet. The EA said he imagines the process taking up to 7 months worse case scenario. He also said that there were a number of similar cases ongoing within his portfolio.

Anyway, I said I've been advised not to proceed until the tenants are gone and he said that the vendor is likely to want to put the house back up for sale in that event. He said that she would want some commitment my side such as swapping solicitors details to draw up a memorandum of sale but that we wouldn't proceed further, and incur costs, until tenants were gone.

How does this sound? Is there a soft option for me to give the vendor some security or am I being dumb by even entertaining it? For what it's worth, I really like the property and I managed to get it at the asking price. I had bid £10k over asking on a similar property recently in the same street and got outbid.

Sorry, but the EA is plucking dates out of the sky.

To be fair to the EA, he actually said that we dont know how long it will take but he's never known the process taking longer than 6 to 7 months.

The process may not take longer than 6-7 months, but the eviction process cannot start until the end of the notice period.  The pandemic has meant longer delays due to backlogs.  If there are any mistakes with the S21 Notice, then the whole process starts from the beginning again.

As Exodi states above, it is typical EA talk and I agree with the point about laying the blame at the sellers' door.  If they wanted to market the property now, they should have advertised it purely to landlords - not that I would imagine any landlords would want to take on tenants with months of arrears!

Sunsaru

Exodi said:

saajan_12 said:

It *could* be a risk for any tenant, as they have the right to stay until properly evicted by a court, involving exacting notice requirements and a long court backlog. 

Having said that, in my experience lots of tenants to just play ball and leave upon receiving notice / being asked nicely if they can afford it. On this forum we probably see more of the cases where it doesn't. 

HOWEVER in this case, if you say they are already 'problem tenants' and not following the AST already, then the risk is MUCH higher. So advice to not proceed until the tenants are out stands. In the meantime, continue to look elsewhere and keep this on the backburner, for whichever happens first (find another place or tenants leave this one). 

OP mentioned at the bottom of the first page that the tenants were many months in arrears.

I wouldn't touch this with a 100ft barge pole.

I wouldn't touch this with a stolen barge bole....