When a tired landlord has a tenant go into rent arrears, it can often be the last straw.
The landlord decides they’ve had enough and they would like to sell up.
Invariably, a traditional estate agent will suggest to the landlord that they require vacant possession in order to sell the property for the best possible price on the open market.
When the landlord subsequently serves notice on the tenant, oftentimes the tenant will decide that they will not make up their rent arrears and just wait to be evicted so that the property can sell.
It is also worth noting that a tenant is entitled to what is known as “quiet enjoyment” of their rental home, and even if it is written into the T & C’s of the tenancy agreement that the tenant has to agree to viewings, this clause is not enforceable.
Finally, because of huge housing waiting lists, many local authorities are advising tenants in rent arrears to remain in the property until they are evicted! This is because the council are not obliged to house people who made themselves “intentionally homeless” by leaving the property following a Section 21 being issued.
A spotlight was thrown on evictions this week where new research revealed that it takes an average of 118 days for court-appointed bailiffs to remove tenants from private landlords’ properties after bringing a claim to court.
Landlords in London are the most likely to have to evict, while those in the South West, North East and West Midlands were least likely to have to go all the way to court to secure their evictions.
Landlords can see at a glance how their region fares here.
Tenant possession claims via the courts
During 2017, private landlords brought 21,439 possession claims to courts in England and Wales.
27% of claims didn’t receive a court order. Many claims are rejected for failing to follow the correct eviction proceedings.
If you add on the two month arrears that a tenant has to accrue before notice can be served, this means that a landlord is potentially having to wait an average of 6 months to evict a delinquent tenant and get their property back!
If we take an average rental of £500.00 per month, that equates to lost income of £3,000.00 over that time frame.
If the landlord has a mortgage on the property, they will be paying out on that mortgage with no income coming in.
Additional to this, you can add legal, court and bailiff fees of between £1,500 to £3,000, depending on the circumstances.
Indeed, the research referred to earlier found that the average insurance payment made for eviction support is £4,341.22, which includes legal expenses and lost rent.
Then there is the time and emotional stress cost to the consider, and each landlord should put a price on these as having to go through to eviction of a tenant can certainly be very stressful and may even involve the landlord attending court and/or the eviction itself.
So all of the above should be taken into consideration when choosing the best route to sell your rental property.
Sell a property with tenants to LandlordBuyer
Here at LandlordBuyer, rental arrears are not a problem for us. We will buy your property tenanted, even if the tenant is not up to date in paying the rent.
We are genuine cash buyers and can complete in a timescale to suit you. It can be as little as 7 days if we can agree the price and all the required documentation is available.
Selling to us means no fuss and no mortgage expenses with no rent coming it. It means no need to deal with court papers and bailiffs. It is a clean and straightforward end to your property problem!
As a family-run business, and landlords ourselves, we understand the stresses and strains of renting out property and we have created a rental property buying service to assist landlords in selling a property tenanted, without the need to evict tenants or worry about voids.
Just imagine that feeling of no more worrying about evicting a tenant, paying the mortgage with no rent coming in, and emails dropping into your Inbox about a problem that is causing you stress!
We solve it all with our professional tenanted property buying service. You simply hand the problem over to us and we take over the property and tenancy lock, stock, and barrel relieving you of this problem and allowing you to move on in life with the proceeds from the sale.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by giving us a call and requesting a no-obligation offer.
We pride ourselves with our ethical business approach and we have many happy clients who you can ask to speak to if you would like a testimonial of the service we provide.