Can anyone help with this?

unklerosco

There's a house we've been looking to buy for a while but we're not in a position at present to apply for a mortgage. Our ideal situation would be to rent the house with a view to buying. This became a possibility a few weeks ago when I met the owner outside the house and started talking to him. We called around today to have a good look around the house and had a good chat with him. He's open to the idea of us renting the house with the aim of buying it..

Now there is one issue that I'm looking for help with. He doesn't want to sell the house straight away as any money from the house will go straight to the bank. His business went under a while ago and he owes the bank a few $$$. I can only assume the house was used as a guarantee against a loan etc. Anyways, he's hoping to have it sorted over the next year so that he can sell the house and keep the proceeds..

What I'm wondering, if we're renting and his situation goes tits up and the bank take ownership of the house and move to sell it what would happen. We'd want to buy the house from the bank in this situation, would we have first refusal as tenants of the house or how would it work?

I'm just trying to cover all the various possibilities for my pro's and cons list, this one I need a bit of help with..

quad_red

You would have rights as tenants of the property to see out the duration of your lease and/or get appropriate legal notice of termination of the lease.

But you wouldn't have any legal right to anything in relation to ownership of the property.

Why would you? You would have to follow up the issue with the bank or whatever agents they retained to manage the sale of the property.

Also: I would be very wary of getting into any financial arrangements (formal or informal) with someone in serious financial distress.

If things go belly up does your deposit go up in smoke as well?

unklerosco

Thanks for the info regarding the lease. Didn't expect to have an legal rights but was wondering about what processes follow a receivership..

We've no intentions of getting into any financial arrangements with the owner. No idea what would happen regards a deposit if things went belly up, guess we'd be at the bottom of the list for getting repaid if that was the case..

quad_red

It looks messy either way. See this thread:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=78951103

djimi wrote: »

What kind of lease do you have; have you renewed a fixed term lease at the end of every year or are you on a part 4 tenancy?

On a fixed term lease you are secure in the property until the lease expires at least. The new owners of the property would become your landlords but they are bound by the terms of the lease in the same way the previous landlord is.

On a part 4 tenancy the landlord can ask you to leave if they want to sell the place, but at a guess I would imagine that the recievers will be happy for you to remain paying rent until they can offload it at least.

Im not actually sure what the story with your deposit is to be honest. I would imagine that the new landlord is responsible for it, but someone more knowledgable will probably clarify that.

paul71 wrote: »

If they are being unhelpful simply tell them that since you have no contract with them that you will continue fulfill your obligation under your currently legally binding lease by paying your existing landlord. This should elicite a response from them at which point you can tell them you need the status of your deposite to be clarified.

I would also question the legal basis of what they are calling a receivership. An individual cannot go into receivership only a limited company can, if it is the case that the landlord is a limited company then I would ask the solicitor why you as a creditor did not receive a proxy to attend a liquidators meeting and tell them that the appointed liquidator can be replaced by the courts as due process was not followed.

I suspect that it is not a receivership and that the bank are simply reposessing a house from an individual in which case you should not pay rent to the solicitor until you have seen evidence that the Bank has indeed secured posession of the house. If Threshold cant help try to obtain free legal advise through a local Citizens information office as to my eye the word Receivership does not sit easily with an individual landlord.

unklerosco

quad_red wrote: »

It looks messy either way. See this thread:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=78951103

Cheers