By Steve Roulstone
Rental Issues: Reserving a rented property whilst a Sale completes.
This is one of those issues that whilst rare does occur now and then and always causes confusion. I think clarity would help so that potential Tenants understand where Letting Agents are positioned and why we have to do what we do. It has happened at our office in Stafford again recently and it is the matter of how long we are prepared to hold a property before Tenants accept responsibility (sign a Tenancy agreement) that is nearly always at question. Under normal circumstances and with so many Tenants in the market at present, this problem does not and need not occur.
Legal position.
Tenants are only legally bound to pay for a property from the day they actually sign the agreement and of course Tenants do not wish to do so if they are subject to a sale which has not completed or could indeed collapse which seems to happen more often in recent years. Nobody would want to accept a minimum of six months liability for a property that should the sale collapse, you could neither afford or equally wish to use as your home. This is why Agents will quite often ask for payment from a date in time without signing the agreement as a payment in good faith but without committing the Tenant to legal documents which have far more lengthy implications.
Holding a property.
What needs to be realised is that Letting Agents have a legal responsibility to provide the best service and advise to the Landlord because of our legal position (as Agent of the Landlord) What also needs to be considered is that the Landlord will need to earn income from the property for as many days possible. Agents will do whatever they can to avoid void periods for Landlords, it is easy to see why anybody who owns a property as an investment, which is of course exactly what rental property is wants to earn rental income for every week possible. This is why once we have found a Tenant we will (in most cases?) confirm that we allow a four week period under normal circumstances for the move to be completed.
No similarity with sales.
This of course is the rub, there is nothing in the two processes which are alike, indeed the only comparison would be to expect Building Societies to allow payments to be suspended during the same period, so you can see how one sided the effect of waiting for a sale to complete now sits! Therefore we have to proceed in the best way possible for our Landlords and during a period where the rental market continues to improve, people who are renting after selling are not necessarily so attractive as prospective Tenants. I have known situations where sales collapsed after a seven week wait and resulted in the Landlord having a three month void period. Position this with our legal responsibility to give best service and advice to our Landlords and perhaps the situation becomes more understandable!
Co-operation required.
It is of course an emotive subject as anybody who has gone through a house sale nowadays would know. So we have to ask for co-operation from prospective Tenants under these circumstances and interim payments to reserve the property without asking for a legal commitment by signing the Tenancy agreement are a half way house which I believe offers both parties the ability to proceed and still deal with whatever the legal process of house selling throws at us, what we ask is that Tenants understand our liabilities and can co-operate in the same way.
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