Sometimes it’s just best to sell up and move on.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a landlord who is at risk of losing his rental property due to mortgage arrears, caused by his student tenants not paying their rent…at all!!

Naturally, his lender showed concern and was quite sympathetic to his situation, but as time went on, the lender changed their tune and eventually handed his case over to an LPA Receiver and that’s when things turned nasty.

The receiver turned up at the property and asked to gain entry, which was refused by the tenants and when asked why they were even at the property, the reply was they were there just to make sure that the property was indeed occupied.

The landlord to be fair, had been proactive in trying to find a solution to his “situation” and did have an agreed sale however, because the agreed sale was subject to a mortgage offer being made, his lender was not interested and wanted to pursue the repossession route.

As a result and because the experience had left a nasty taste in the landlord’s mouth, he had resigned himself to losing the property provided he did not fall into debt. Two options were open to him with the decision to lose the property and they were, gamble with the agreed sale and hope that the mortgage application went to offer (which would take time with no guarantees) or go for a cash sale which would be quick, but impact on his equity, as generally cash buyers would be looking for a big discount.

The only thing that could dampen the cash sale that I could see, would be when (not if) the cash buyer asked to see the rent receipts. As he had not received any rent for some time, he would not be able to produce any receipt of rent, further impacting on his equity in the property,

He decided that this would probably be the best option and would call the cash buyer back and see where the sale would go from there. I wished him luck and mentioned that if the cash sale was to fall through, we could help him as we have access to cash buyers.

My good deed for the day I thought.

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