Questions about renting

[Miss Chicken]

This doesn't apply to me because I am government housing but I overheard it being discuss.

If you are renting a place and the owner decides to sell the house you are living in, how much warning do you think the owner/real estate agent should give you before he/she shows a potential buyer the house?

How often should the house be shown to potential buyers?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

In he US it varies by state (mostly 24-48 hours notice and only during normal business hours). In California it's 24 hours notice.

As far as frequency of visits per week, I don't think there are state regulations regarding that, but it would most likely be found in the rental agreement. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe a maximum of three to four visits per week with days off in between showing days in order to give the tenant time to relax or clean.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I never had that exact situation, but I did have a situation where I was ending my lease and the owner wanted to show it to a new possible tenant. I usually got 24 hours notice, but I'd sometimes get a call that day and ask if it was OK. He eventually figured out if he gave greater notice, there was a greater chance of the place being clean when a potential renter visited, though.

 

[Gecko of Gorn]

It varies per state here in Australia but this real estate.com.au blog article should help you out.

 

[jaz'a]

This doesn't apply to me because I am government housing but I overheard it being discuss.

If you are renting a place and the owner decides to sell the house you are living in, how much warning do you think the owner/real estate agent should give you before he/she shows a potential buyer the house?

How often should the house be shown to potential buyers?

In Queensland the rule is that there must be 24 hours written notice. I don't think this is enough time. If my landlord were to want to sell he'd do well to give me more notice than this. Otherwise he'd find that the property wouldn't be in the best of states.

What is reasonable would really depend on the tenants personal circumstances. For an open house I'd expect at least the same notice I'm given for an inspection. Legally that is 7 days written notice, but in reality it's more like 2-3 weeks. That may seem like a long time but open for inspection dates are easy to schedule well in advance.

For appointments.. I'm not sure what I'd be comfortable with. If the Landlord wants the house neat and tidy then it would be best to give me 48 hours notice (I'd prefer more, but I appreciate this would be difficult in this scenario) and limit it to twice,3 times top, a week. Anything more than that and I will very quickly not care about the state it was in.

If my landlord were to ask to sell, I'd probably try and get out of the least ASAP. I have mental health concerns and having strangers coming through my residence regularly would only make them worse.

I have read that some people will ask for a rent reduction and for the landlord to pay for a cleaner during the sale period. This makes sense. The rent reduction for the inconvenience and the cleaner because it's in the landlords benefit for the house to be clean and tidy. There is little incentive for a tenant to actually care about making a sale faster.

 

[eyeresist]

I assume this would come under the same rules as an estate agent property inspection, which in NSW at least requires 7 days notice (or did last time I rented). The sellers would be idiots to rush the renters, because longer notice means more chance of the property being presentable when viewed.

Unless the place is a really hot property (or the agent has nothing else to do), I shouldn't expect too many viewings, as the agents will have other properties to sell to keep them busy. The one rental house I lived in where this happened, I think there were two Saturday morning viewings a week apart.

(I know it was two weeks because my housemate made a point of watching the first Star Wars movie during the first showing, and Empire Strikes Back during the second, and we never got to watch Return of the Jedi!)

 

[Scout101]

Pretty much. Gotta give 24 hours notice pretty much everywhere, although as long as the tenant is ok with it, it's not like it's legally binding, they can call and ask to pop in in an hour, you can just say no if you want. In practice, the more notice you give, the better the chance of the tenant accommodating, and cleaning up a little.

Had a somewhat similar issue when I bought my house a month or two back. Had a tenant in there, and the owner didn't really communicate with them. And tenant didn't really care about cleaning up, either. Helped me with pricing, as I could argue it wasn't in nice shape, and it kept other buyers from seeing it as nicely as it could have been, but still not great.

They also sold the house with the closing date overlapping with the rental agreement, which caused some heartburn on their end. I owned it as of 10am that day, tenant had a valid lease until midnight that night. I DID stipulate that I would not accept leases or tenants, and they had to be out, but they didn't communicate that with them or give them anything to move out early, so it was a bit of a cluster the last couple days before the sale. I leaned on the tenant to get out (he had already bought a place anyway and was just picking at things), but pain in the ass. Ended up making the owner pay for a cleaner, as the tenant left in a huff and refused to clean when he left, which was a stipulation in his lease AND in my sales agreement. Overall PITA, but it worked out I guess...