House with tenant in situ – what to do?

House with tenant in situ – what to do?

9:24 AM, 5th June 2023, About A year ago 13

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Hi everyone, I recently bought an auction property with a tenant in situ. We have tenancy agreement but it doesn’t give too much info.

We requested tenant details from our solicitor but nothing. Letting agent didn’t give tenant details.

We found tenant details from the buyer’s solicitor. Our solicitor prepared a rent authority – the tenant has 51 non paid days.

Still finding hard to reach tenant. Tenant doesn’t answer phones, send a text but no reply.

We are living in London and bought the property in Newcastle (4.5 hr drive). We haven’t seen the property yet.

What can we do? Can we just go to the property?

If there’s no answer, can we change the locks (As we don’t have any keys)?

Confused … please help!

Merve


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Raz

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13:18 PM, 6th June 2023, About A year ago

First serve a section 48 (change of landlord) notice - include latest "how to rent" leaflet with it and details of how/where to pay rent- send by registered post and keep the senders' receipt safe - must happen within 2 months of purchase. Check EPC to see if property has valid cert (check free online by postcode). Check if there was a deposit given by tenant and where/if it has been properly secured - make sure previous landlord tranfers any deposit to an account under your name. There's 3 deposit companies and it's free to set up an account. IF EPC and deposit exist send a copy of these to tenant too. Tell tenant to contact you to arrange a gas check and EICR and EPC IF NECESSARY (DONT RELY ON HEARSAY THAT THERE ARE VALID CERTS IF YOU DONT HAVE THEM IN HAND).
If they dont respond get onto the council health and safety say you're trying to arrange safety checks but tenant not responding. Council will send out a letter and USUALLY this is enough to get tenant to respond.
Once you've sorted a date for gas check, give them notice you're going to do landlord inspection at same time - give at least 48 hrs notice (if theyve already agreed to gas check then they cant say theyre not going to be there at time of inspection!) Get a professinal inventory done at this time (if one doesn't already exist) and fix any pending maintenance issues.
THEN, once youre all legal and everything is as should be, IF existing AST has expired or after 2 months arrears after 4 months of a 6 month AST then you can serve a s21 notice giving notice you want them out. If they dont appeal THEN you can apply for eviction notice. THEN once that's granted you can apply for baliffs warrant to officially remove them. Be prepared to fork out at least £5k to get this far. OR just cut your losses and fling it back in auction...

Rightmove comps

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19:39 PM, 6th June 2023, About A year ago

Caveat Emptor.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread .
This could work out very expensive, due to distance and lack of foresight.

Francis Cummings

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22:40 PM, 6th June 2023, About A year ago

Good grief. Conveyancer here. You're on a bit of a sticky wicket here as others have said.
Who did the conveyancing for you at point of auction?
If they didn't warn you about this, they MUST be pulled up on this.
Serve a section 21 or wait for two clear months of non payment of rent and serve a section 8.
Brace yourself for the fact you aren't going to see any rent from what you've described of the tenant and hope (when they leave) they leave it in a good state.
Make sure the notices are served correctly the first time too. Good luck.

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