sitting tenant wanting to buy off landlord

noseymum

I have been renting my house since 1990 and have been told I have sitting tenant status,my landlord has recently died and his family, who have inherited the property, are allowing me first refusal to buy it.
I have trawled the internet trying to find out anything relevant to my situation ie;a sitting tenant buying from a landlord and cant seem to find much pertaining to my particular situation.
My landlords family have not mentioned any figures and as they are not in the area have asked me to get 3 quotes from the local estate agents to value the house.
A family friend has told me that I should pay less than the market value as the landlords family would lose some of the value if they had to sell it with me in it.Is that true?
My rent is fairly low. I am worried that if I accept,so I can stay put,that I may not be able to afford mortgage payments.
Any help from a knowing person would be much appreciated.

asharon

I'm no expert and am sure others will be along to offer help.

What I would do firstly is have a cup of tea.

Then get the three quotes and take it from there.

Yes it may be that you can offer them lower, a good thing to do is to ask the three estate agents when they come round as they will know and be able to offer an opinion.

Then you need to look at how much it will cost you and can you afford it ?

Do you want to buy a house ? Do you have a deposit ? etc

If you can rent and not have the rent suddenly put up too high and you would rather rent then you should do so.

But I would start by looking at the options and get the estate agents round and take it from there.

Trying_to_be_good

Make sure you ask the agents for a price WITH YOU AS THE SITTING TENANT - this will be lower than the property being sold wiht vacant possession, i.e. no sitting tenant.

You will also need to know what your rent would be if the family of your late landlord decide to keep the property, and also you may want to ask the agents what the rental value would be, i.e. how much open market rent could be. I'm not sure whether you have some sort of reserved right to low rent as I don't know the law - someone else may well do!