Keys not given at time of completion?

doodling

Hi,

This thread seems to have got stuck on what should have happened which, whilst no doubt interesting, is of no value to the OP or their friends.

The issue now is that the friends have a house that was sold with vacant possession (someone need to check that that was what the contract says) but that wasn't vacant.

Essentially there are two high level actions:
1. (Legally!) evict the occupiers.
2. Sue the previous owners for the costs of so doing, the rent that the OPs friends have been paying and any other costs they might have.

The OPs friends need legal advise. I would suggest that they find a "litigation solicitor" at a practise different to that where their conveyancer worked (I have not seen anything which suggests the coveyancer has acted improperly but you don't want to run the risk of conflicts of interest within the solicitors you are now dealing with).

Whichever solicitors they go to needs to have both litigation and housing law expertise as support will be needed both for the eviction and the recovery of costs from the vendor.

In the worst case, the tenants might have a tenancy which makes them impossible to evict and in that case the whole cost of the house will need to be recovered from the vendor.

I assume that there is still a way to contact the vendor - if they have done a runner with the money then this could prove to be very expensive indeed.

SusieT

Adezoo said:

SusieT said:

At exchange the date for completion with vacant posession is set - the seller had exchanged knowing that the house would not be vacant since tenants were still there and appear to have had no legal requirement to leave.
If either party do not complete, they are liable for the costs incurred by the other party (and that will go up and down the whole chain if there is one).
The seller of this property was liable for any costs incurred by your friend from the original completion date until the date the property "completed"
As the property was not vacant your friend should have immediately contacted their solicitor/conveyancer to claim from the previous owner as they were in breach of contract and they had not given vacant posession.
Right now, your friend is in deep doodoo, they have a residential mortgage with a tenanted property, they have no contract with the tenant, they have no idea if/when the tenant will leave or what the status is, they cannot evict them as they have no idea what the status is, they have no idea what the condition of the property is as they cannot enter it if it is tenanted - probably a lot more as well.
They urgently need to talk to an experienced solicitor who deals with this sort of thing, as they are currently standing in a minefield with no easy route out.

I am sure the tenants would have been made aware, I couldn’t possible imagine not knowing the house is up for sale. There would be photo taken, sometimes the for sale sign up etc. That’s what they did, they had to get another solicitor involved

It is not a case of the tenants being aware, as legally they did not HAVE to move out.
As an example, I used to have 2 rented properties, 1 I sold tenanted so the buyer was a landlord and the contract passed to them. The other, they gave notice and I had the estate agent round while the tenant was still there for photos, but they did not actively market it until they had left and it was empty even though I was 99% certain they were going (and would have been happy to show viewers aroind). Reason being that I did not want to end up in the situation whereby they give notice and fail to leave. I most certainly would not have exchanged until the house was empty. A tenant can be given notice to leave on say 30 November as the house is for sale, but legally there is nothing to stop them from staying put until they or a court end the tennancy. Your friend does not know what their status is, and needs to urgently seek legal advice.

Ath_Wat

It's perfectly possible - though by no means certain - that the tenants do intend to move out and won't need to be evicted, they are just being a bit slow about it.  This is of course the best case scenario.

I am not however convinced that the OP knows enough about the situation to enable anyone to give any better advice than "your friends need to speak to a different solicitor asap".

Adezoo

Niv said:

Niv said:

In the short term the OPs friend needs to acknowledge that they are now landlords and ensure they are doing all that they have to in that respect. I saw a suggestion of issuing a section 21... well I understand there are a number of conditions that need to be satisfied before a valid notice can be issued of which I would presume the new landlords are not aware of.

OP - Have your friends made contact with their new tenants to understand the lay of the land? Do your friends tenants realise they have a new landlord?  Do they actually intend to leave? Do they have your friends contact details? Do they have your friends bank details - so they can pay their rent? etc etc 

OP. Apologies if you have responded but I cannot see it.

For all the toing and froing about keys etc. What is your friend actually doing about their situation? As others have said they need to establish what sort of tenancy their tenants have and then go from there.

While I appreciate that your friend doesn't want to be a landlord they very much appear to be one so need to look into how they get out of it. 'I didn't know what to do' is no defence if something goes horribly wrong with the tenants. 

They are getting advice from solicitor to solve the case to be honest

Adezoo

doodling said:

Hi,

This thread seems to have got stuck on what should have happened which, whilst no doubt interesting, is of no value to the OP or their friends.

The issue now is that the friends have a house that was sold with vacant possession (someone need to check that that was what the contract says) but that wasn't vacant.

Essentially there are two high level actions:
1. (Legally!) evict the occupiers.
2. Sue the previous owners for the costs of so doing, the rent that the OPs friends have been paying and any other costs they might have.

The OPs friends need legal advise. I would suggest that they find a "litigation solicitor" at a practise different to that where their conveyancer worked (I have not seen anything which suggests the coveyancer has acted improperly but you don't want to run the risk of conflicts of interest within the solicitors you are now dealing with).

Whichever solicitors they go to needs to have both litigation and housing law expertise as support will be needed both for the eviction and the recovery of costs from the vendor.

In the worst case, the tenants might have a tenancy which makes them impossible to evict and in that case the whole cost of the house will need to be recovered from the vendor.

I assume that there is still a way to contact the vendor - if they have done a runner with the money then this could prove to be very expensive indeed.

Thanks a lot for the sensible comment. Some of the comments have gone to assuming instead of reading what’s been said. I’ll definitely bring this up to them and hopefully they’ll be able to resolve this issue. The solicitor they had left the matter to them to be honest so they would have still needed to get someone else 

Adezoo

SusieT said:

Adezoo said:

SusieT said:

At exchange the date for completion with vacant posession is set - the seller had exchanged knowing that the house would not be vacant since tenants were still there and appear to have had no legal requirement to leave.
If either party do not complete, they are liable for the costs incurred by the other party (and that will go up and down the whole chain if there is one).
The seller of this property was liable for any costs incurred by your friend from the original completion date until the date the property "completed"
As the property was not vacant your friend should have immediately contacted their solicitor/conveyancer to claim from the previous owner as they were in breach of contract and they had not given vacant posession.
Right now, your friend is in deep doodoo, they have a residential mortgage with a tenanted property, they have no contract with the tenant, they have no idea if/when the tenant will leave or what the status is, they cannot evict them as they have no idea what the status is, they have no idea what the condition of the property is as they cannot enter it if it is tenanted - probably a lot more as well.
They urgently need to talk to an experienced solicitor who deals with this sort of thing, as they are currently standing in a minefield with no easy route out.

I am sure the tenants would have been made aware, I couldn’t possible imagine not knowing the house is up for sale. There would be photo taken, sometimes the for sale sign up etc. That’s what they did, they had to get another solicitor involved

It is not a case of the tenants being aware, as legally they did not HAVE to move out.
As an example, I used to have 2 rented properties, 1 I sold tenanted so the buyer was a landlord and the contract passed to them. The other, they gave notice and I had the estate agent round while the tenant was still there for photos, but they did not actively market it until they had left and it was empty even though I was 99% certain they were going (and would have been happy to show viewers aroind). Reason being that I did not want to end up in the situation whereby they give notice and fail to leave. I most certainly would not have exchanged until the house was empty. A tenant can be given notice to leave on say 30 November as the house is for sale, but legally there is nothing to stop them from staying put until they or a court end the tennancy. Your friend does not know what their status is, and needs to urgently seek legal advice.

Yes but in that case we are talking about tenants who know about it, but don’t want to leave. The seller shouldn’t have gone through with it knowing they were still in the house, simple as that. Not even declare it as vacant. You’re basically lying.

sevenhills

Adezoo said:.

I am trying to look for the discussion on here, but can’t seem to find it.

It does seem like a pointless discussion, whether it's just a wind up, I am unsure.

Adezoo

sevenhills said:

Adezoo said:.

I am trying to look for the discussion on here, but can’t seem to find it.

It does seem like a pointless discussion, whether it's just a wind up, I am unsure.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6299632/completion-with-no-keys 

Ath_Wat

Adezoo said:

sevenhills said:

Adezoo said:.

I am trying to look for the discussion on here, but can’t seem to find it.

It does seem like a pointless discussion, whether it's just a wind up, I am unsure.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6299632/completion-with-no-keys 

As was made clear in that thread, they had every right to break in after completion.  The seller of the house told them it was illegal to break in because she had not been informed completion had taken place. Again, keys are wholly irrelevant.

Ath_Wat

Adezoo said:

SusieT said:

Adezoo said:

SusieT said:

At exchange the date for completion with vacant posession is set - the seller had exchanged knowing that the house would not be vacant since tenants were still there and appear to have had no legal requirement to leave.
If either party do not complete, they are liable for the costs incurred by the other party (and that will go up and down the whole chain if there is one).
The seller of this property was liable for any costs incurred by your friend from the original completion date until the date the property "completed"
As the property was not vacant your friend should have immediately contacted their solicitor/conveyancer to claim from the previous owner as they were in breach of contract and they had not given vacant posession.
Right now, your friend is in deep doodoo, they have a residential mortgage with a tenanted property, they have no contract with the tenant, they have no idea if/when the tenant will leave or what the status is, they cannot evict them as they have no idea what the status is, they have no idea what the condition of the property is as they cannot enter it if it is tenanted - probably a lot more as well.
They urgently need to talk to an experienced solicitor who deals with this sort of thing, as they are currently standing in a minefield with no easy route out.

I am sure the tenants would have been made aware, I couldn’t possible imagine not knowing the house is up for sale. There would be photo taken, sometimes the for sale sign up etc. That’s what they did, they had to get another solicitor involved

It is not a case of the tenants being aware, as legally they did not HAVE to move out.
As an example, I used to have 2 rented properties, 1 I sold tenanted so the buyer was a landlord and the contract passed to them. The other, they gave notice and I had the estate agent round while the tenant was still there for photos, but they did not actively market it until they had left and it was empty even though I was 99% certain they were going (and would have been happy to show viewers aroind). Reason being that I did not want to end up in the situation whereby they give notice and fail to leave. I most certainly would not have exchanged until the house was empty. A tenant can be given notice to leave on say 30 November as the house is for sale, but legally there is nothing to stop them from staying put until they or a court end the tennancy. Your friend does not know what their status is, and needs to urgently seek legal advice.

Yes but in that case we are talking about tenants who know about it, but don’t want to leave. The seller shouldn’t have gone through with it knowing they were still in the house, simple as that. Not even declare it as vacant. You’re basically lying.

Of course they shouldn't, but people do lots of things they shouldn't do.  That's why we have courts.  But courts can be very slow and very expensive, which is why it is best to check in advance, as far as you can, that people are not going to try and swindle you, especially when spending hundreds of thousands of pounds.