Rental Property

[PAUL55]

We are about to buy a property to rent out,
The tennants have been given notice to vacate by the current owner.
We would like to keep the current tennants when we complete, but only wan't to continue with short tennancy contracts renewed yearly.
Do the tennants actually have to vacate the property whilst completion is carried out? if so for how long? or can this just be done on paper to save any inconvenience to the tennant?.

[Peter Pedant]

You cant be doing this without a lawyer

and this is something you need to ask yourlawyer

yes increased fee, however the upshot is that bydoing it badly you maybe giving them security of tenure

The real issue is that you are signing for a property with vacant possession, ermwhen it is not, in fact you have sitting tenants

Bad News, youwant to get a lawyer in on this at the beginning rather than sortinng it out in a year or two

Use the phrase sitting tenants to your lawyer who is handling the transaction and see the look on his face !

[cascarelli]

There's no reason why you can't purchase the property with the tenants in place, this happens all the time. The seller possibly only gave notice to the tenants because they can get a better price if the property is empty.

Do you know what type of tenancy the current tenants are on? This needs checking out. If it is an AST then it should be ok. Other forms of tenancy are more difficult to manage - i.e. increasing the rent, getting rid of a bad tenant etc can be impossible sometimes.

So, if you want the tenants to stay, offer them a new tenancy from when you take over. I would suggest an initial 6 months AST tenancy which is allowed to go periodic after that period. This gives you the best chance of evicting them if they turn out to be poor tenants.

[PAUL55]

Thanks for that, Iv'e spoken to my solicitor today and he has said the same. The current tennants are on a short term tennancy agreement which has been renewed every 12 months. I will do as you said and start with a six month contract and after that, all being well I will carry on with 12 monthly contracts. Thanks again.