Giving notice on a rental as a first time buyer

gmw13

I'm a first time buyer and I'm unsure when to give notice on my rental. I've had an offer accepted and the completion date is fairly optimistic. My solicitor has advised not to give notice until completion, however the estate agent is saying I should give notice asap to align with the completion date. Is there scope to ask the estate agent to cover any rental costs due to a delayed completion date?!

propertyrental

No.

Do not serve notice till you 'Exchange Contracts'. Only when that happens can you be sure your purchase will Complete. If you serve notice earlier, and your purchase falls through you'll either be homeless or liable for double rent for not leaving when you said you would.

Why not agree a 4 week gap between Exchange and Completion?

As for claiming off the estate agent- good luck with that!!!

lika_86

Having an overlap isn't a bad idea anyway, it means you don't need to be packed up and moving on completion day, you can sort out any final bits in your rental and get it back in the state it was in when you moved in and gives you a chance to sort out essentials in your new property like curtains etc if not left. 

Emily_Joy

How far is your rental from your new house? As above - do not give a notice before Exchange of Contracts. If you have a week or even two overlap, it will probably save you a lot of stress. You do not need to move on the completion day.

RHemmings

Apologies to the OP of this thread, but I'm in the same position. I'm hoping for exchange in December and completion in January (we will see), but that would work for me. Then I could give notice after exchange, and have a couple of weeks overlap to make it easy to move. This is not my thread (though I could easily have posted the same OP), but in my case the house I'm buying is about 500 metres away from the one I'm currently living in. 

propertyrental

RHemmings said:

Apologies to the OP of this thread, but I'm in the same position. I'm hoping for exchange in December and completion in January (we will see), but that would work for me. Then I could give notice after exchange, and have a couple of weeks overlap to make it easy to move. This is not my thread (though I could easily have posted the same OP), but in my case the house I'm buying is about 500 metres away from the one I'm currently living in. 

Is there a question in there that you need answering? If so, what?

Or are you responding to advise the OP - in which case what's your advice?

chunkytfg

lika_86 said:

Having an overlap isn't a bad idea anyway, it means you don't need to be packed up and moving on completion day, you can sort out any final bits in your rental and get it back in the state it was in when you moved in and gives you a chance to sort out essentials in your new property like curtains etc if not left. 

This is definitely the right advice.  We had a 5 week overlap when we bought our house and it gave us time to slowly move our stuff across to the new house along with a bit of decorating and DIY that needed doing which is 100x easier in an empty house that you're not living in.

BobT36

If you have the money, the safest way is when you have the keys in your hands..

If will struggle a bit, then exchange. 

RHemmings

propertyrental said:

RHemmings said:

Apologies to the OP of this thread, but I'm in the same position. I'm hoping for exchange in December and completion in January (we will see), but that would work for me. Then I could give notice after exchange, and have a couple of weeks overlap to make it easy to move. This is not my thread (though I could easily have posted the same OP), but in my case the house I'm buying is about 500 metres away from the one I'm currently living in. 

Is there a question in there that you need answering? If so, what?

Or are you responding to advise the OP - in which case what's your advice?

I'm saying that I have the same question as the OP. 

SandyShores

We were in the same situation about three years ago and we didn't give notice until exchange had happened.  Exchange was delayed 2 months because of Covid so it was definitely the right thing to do..  I would have preferred to give more notice but I didn't want to put us at any risk.

It doesn't feel very MSE to pay rent and mortgage but it was worth it.  We were able to move stuff over gradually, but we were also able to pop back and meet ebay buyers and do the cleaning etc.  We also handed the property back early with the landlord's agreement and were able to do the meter readings early too.

I do remember we were going to be charged council tax on both properties for the overlap, so I called the council and asked for reduction on the rental as it would be empty.  They weren't very helpful to start with, and I had some conversation about if one of us stayed in the old house and one moved into the new then surely they could at least give us single person discount.  They were a bit snarky saying they would visit the properties to make sure we were living there (maybe if it wasn't the middle of covid they might have done) so I didn't pursue it, but then we definitely received some sort of discount after we moved, not sure what it was as we were so busy..  Might be worth looking into as every little helps when you are moving.

youth_leader

I was in rented when I bought this bungalow and on a monthly rolling contract.  My rent date was the 6th.  I exchanged on the 4th  - the vendor wanted to complete on the 11th.  Didn't fit in with my plans at all.

My landlord was very kind and allowed me to give five weeks notice.  So very lucky he did, it took me a long time to clean the house thoroughly. 

Do clean your rental very thoroughly to ensure you get your deposit returned in full.  I worked very hard cleaning before I moved out, but I still got a big close up photo of the 'ANIMAL FUR/DEBRIS' on top of the radiator - and a cobweb.