What Does a Buyer Need to Know/Do?
A seller of a buy-to-let may well have tenants in place who are due to leave the property, along with their possessions (before the expected date). In this situation, the buyer might want to ask for a time frame and conduct a second inspection once the tenants have moved out.
The conveyancing solicitor will not visit the property in question. If you, as a buyer, are concerned – and if there’s evidence of habitation after you were assured the house was empty – then you should speak with your solicitor promptly.
Finally, buyers shouldn’t put up with any nonsense. Whilst tenants or squatters might represent a sizable breach of the rules around vacant repossession, unwanted sofas, beds or even masonry in the garden: these will all (likely) be breaches of contract.
And yet these breaches are harder to resolve after you have taken possession of the property.
It is best to inspect a home before an exchange of contracts. This ensures that the conditions stipulated in those contracts are being met. But this is doubly true of a house where tenants have been living because they have rights to the property, too.
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