Would you hand in rental notice without having exchanged?

Slithery

Never give notice until after exchange.

You should already have accounted for the possibility of a 2 month overlap into your budget when deciding how much to spend on your purchase.

nekr0mantik

im in same situation and decided not to risk is even though its £1800 worth of rent down the toilet.

The stress caused by any issues would not make it worth while in my view.

Also can relax about furniture delivery timelines and move in slowly.

My EA told me at the discretion of the landlord if I move out say 3 weeks before the 2 month notice ends then if landlord has found new tenant to move in sooner then he may allow it to be left early so at least there is a chance of that.

Gavin83

I chose to give notice before exchange, although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. 

Due to the way our contract was done we essentially had to give 3 months notice which equated to nearly £5k. That was too much for me to just throw away so I took the risk and it paid off. We ended up with a week of crossover.

lookstraightahead

I didn't hand in until well after exchange. It's peanuts to overlap compared to potentially being without a home and having to pay storage. 

We didn't even need to hire removal people as we did it ourselves in our own time.

we actually saved money doing it this way.

the stress of having to do everything all in one go can also cost a lot. 

TripleH

We exchanged and handed in our notice which meant we ended up with just over a month's overlap.

It did make moving easier. We had 2 days of moving followed by 3 weeks where we leisurely moved the rest of our stuff and cleaned the rental. Not ideal but I'd rather that than pushing myself silly to move in a day.

newsgroupmonkey_

natasha22 said:

Thanks all, we are planning on overlapping so that our we have both houses for a week currently
Our rent would mean losing 1000 out right, however no other local places to go

Do other people wait until completion to hand in notice then?

No, but most of us wait until after exchange.

MaryNB

natasha22 said:

Thanks all, we are planning on overlapping so that our we have both houses for a week currently
Our rent would mean losing 1000 out right, however no other local places to go

Do other people wait until completion to hand in notice then?

I waited until exchange.  Given my budget was right at the bottom of the range for my area, if my house sale fell through I'd struggle to find another place to purchase in the short term and would be looking for another rental with a min 6 month AST. I'd be really stuck short term - I'd likely be stuck on a friend's couch or in expensive short term accommodation. Absolutely not worth the risk to hand in my notice before exchange. My colleague's house purchase fell through the day before he way due to exchange (which was just a few months before I was buying) so that was on my mind. 

I ended up having a 33 day overlap but if exchange was delayed a few working days it would have been just short of a 2 month overlap.