Buying a house with tenant that you wish to leave

Buying a house with tenant that you wish to leave

12:41 PM, 21st December 2015, About 9 years ago 3

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I Bought a house at auction. It has a supposedly difficult tenant in it who has arrears. The AST has expired. I would like the tenant to leave asap. What is the procedure please? catch21

I understand that a Section 21 is useless as I don’t have an AST. I don’t want to enter into an AST & issue Section 21 as then I would have to wait 6 months to evict.

Bit of a catch 22 ( or catch 21)?

Many thanks

Drew


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Stephen Smith

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10:00 AM, 22nd December 2015, About 9 years ago

I believe the situation is that you assume the rights and obligations of the previous landlord. Since the tenancy is holding over, assuming that the AST existed, a simple section 21 should be sufficient. You may have to make an application to the court for his removal if he proves difficult, the costs of which you will have to cover although there may be provision in the original tenancy agreement to cover this.

The tenancy deposit is the tenants. If it is not protected this can present a problem regarding the S21, however the deposit can be returned to him and then a S21 served. Take legal advice on this though.

The contract should specify that the arrears, should they be recovered, belong to the previous owner.

Under no circumstances give the tenant a new contract since he will surely default on this as well and then you will have to go the messy S8 route, and don't forget that new tenancies are now bound by the new rules.

Best of luck

Tessa Shepperson

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10:03 AM, 22nd December 2015, About 9 years ago

I have written about this situation on my Landlord Law blog here

http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2015/07/21/buying-a-flat-with-a-sitting-tenant-can-they-be-evicted-later/

http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2014/11/20/what-are-a-landlords-rights-to-evict-sitting-tenants-after-he-has-bought-the-property/

The general rule is that you will 'stand in the shoes' of the landlord and have the same (more or less) rights that he had. You do not need to give the tenant a new fixed term.

Assuming the tenancy is an AST you will need to serve a section 21 in the normal way (assuming there are no issues with the tenancy deposit which will prevent your doing this) and then bring proceedings for possession.

If you want to evict without using solicitors see here http://landlordlawinfo.co.uk/eviction/

Big Blue

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11:13 AM, 22nd December 2015, About 9 years ago

The case is that you can still use a section 21 in the normal fashion if you are in a periodic contract, which it sounds like you are.

If on the other hand you are saying that there is no AST as in you don't have a written contract, then the correct procedure is normal S21 at the notice stage but you are then denied the accelerated procedure in court and would default to the N5 and a 'statement of truth' (N119 ceases to be the correct form in this case). This means a court hearing.

However, assuming you've just inherited a periodic with a historic AST agreement, then there are no barriers to the S21 (assuming, as Tessa says, all other compliances have been met).

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