UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi

I'm new to this site, but not a new landlord. I have a couple of questions that I hope someone can help with. We are currently buying an apartment and existing tenants ant to continue to stay and have a new AST from ourselves.
1.  Are we within our rights to insist on new credit checks?
2. As part of our agreement we state that we would review the rent after 12 months. If they then don't agree with our figure, what would we be able to do?

Thanks in advance.

1. If there are no rent arrears, that is what you should be happy with. If you want new credit checks, what will they give you (unless you think you need them for some kind of RGI), and who will pay for them?
2. Section 13... enforce it or evict.

I'm assuming it's not a special kind of regulated tenancy that has been going on for decades or anything like that.

Thanks for  your reply. 

Always be wary of advice from a blog (especially my own)
Do your own research

There is a slight wrinkle to be wary of...
When you buy the property legally you immediately become the landlord pursuant to the current tenancy agreement.
So  the most basic step is to make sure it's all clear between you and the vendor (property seller/current landlord) and the tenant what rent gets paid and to whom (usually simple case of clearing this up once the completion date is confirmed and of course if the tenant is playing ball.
Ideally you would serve section 48 notice and a letter instructing rent to be paid to you..(is there a letting agent involved? If so then are they taking the rent payment? If that's the case then you could let them continue but you'd need to have an agreement with them)
You could later terminate the AST through a deed of surrender and replace it with your own AST

The ugly thing to be careful of is if the tenant for whatever reason decides not sign a new tenancy agreement (especially if you are trying to insert a rent review clause when there isn't one in the current agreement).  Even this may not be a big issue as you can just evict at the time of rent review refusal.

But then comes the catch....where's the deposit? 
Did the vendor transfer this to you at the time you bought the property?  Did the vendor protect it in time when he received it, did he serve the PI in time?
You as the landlord under the tenancy agreement are now responsible for all rights and obligations accrued... You cannot argue (at least it's not clear that you can)..the outgoing Landlord (vendor) was responsible.

If the agent has it then you will either need to sign an agreement with the agent or request the agent transfers it ... and hope they do....if they don't you will still owe the tenant a deposit.

Even if the tenant does sign a deed of surrender and agree to sign a new AST effective the date of completion, you will need to get deposit from the tenant under your new agreement most likely before the tenant gets the deposit back from the vendor .... And that will require some discussion with the tenant or a commitment from the vendor to return the deposit to the tenant after exchange and after the tenant has signed the new AST with you...

There are a number of ways of tidying this all up and I would suggest you talk to your solicitor to make sure everything is in place already under the AST  and how best to handle the old/new AST commensurate with the purchase of the property...it might be best to have the tenant sign a deed of surrender (undated) and the replacement AST effective the completion date...  The problem then is now the tenant plays a part in the whole purchase chain and you might not want that.  Another way is for the vendor to indemnify you but that will incur solictor fees etc.

Just be aware...that's all. It might all be fine and the vendor has done everything by the book and is willing to commit in writing as part of the purchase contract that he will transfer the deposit to an account in your name on or before the compeletion date.

In the past I have actually not taken a deposit form the tenant immediately but waited for the tenant to get the deposit back from the previous agent/landlord or got the tenant to fork out a "second" deposit (while they wait for original deposit to come back) if they want to stay....that way it's a bit cleaner...

Go talk to your solictor.

Best of luck.