Over three quarters of tenants want to stay put after the landlord sells up

The latest tenant research from online property marketplace, Vesta Property, has highlighted the need for a radical departure in the way that rental property is bought and sold.

Related topics:  Landlords
Warren Lewis
14th November 2018
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According to the findings, UK renters do not care about who their landlord is or being locked in to a long-term tenancy with them. What they do care about is being able to stay in the property regardless of change in ownership, with four out of five tenants (78%) saying that they want the option to stay in their homes even if their landlord sells.

Seventy percent of UK renters said they wouldn’t care if their landlord sold as long as their existing contract and rent remained the same. Over three quarters of renters (79%) thought it was ridiculous for a landlord to evict a settled tenant simply for the new landlord to replace them. Research also shows how this practice hurts the landlord, with landlords expected to lose £550 million each year* in lost rental income due to early eviction, the void during the selling and purchase process, and the delays in finding a new tenant when a property is purchased.

Russell Gould, CEO, Vesta Property comments: “Discussions such as enforcing three-year tenancies have raised strong reactions from both landlords and tenants who do not want to have their hands tied. This is not to say that tenants do not want to stay in their homes - far from it. But the answer is not to make the system more rigid, it is to move with the times and mould it into something that works for both landlords and tenants alike.

If a landlord needs to sell their property they should absolutely have the right to do that within a time frame that suits them and ideally without losing rental income. But equally, their settled tenants should not suffer and lose their home because of it. Nor do they need to. The practice of advising a landlord to evict tenants in order to sell a property is outdated. New models like Vesta offering tenant in place sale and purchase, satisfy both the needs of tenants who want to keep their home and landlords or investors who wish to sell or buy.”

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