Inherited flat with sitting tenants and wanting to sell

Renting
1

I’m hoping someone here has been through something similar and can point me in the right direction. My father passed away earlier this year and I’ve inherited his flat in Birmingham. He had been renting it out to the same couple for about four years, and as far as I can tell they are on a periodic tenancy now as the original fixed term ended a couple of years ago.

To be honest, I have no desire to be a landlord. I live over two hours away and I don’t know the area at all. My plan is to sell the flat, but I gather that selling with tenants in situ means a significant discount, so ideally I would want vacant possession.

The tenants have been fine so far in terms of paying rent (it goes into my father’s account which I now have access to as executor), but they have made it clear through the letting agent that they are not keen to move. I may well be naive here, but I assumed that as the new owner I could simply give them notice and that would be that.

I’ve been reading about Section 21 notices and it all seems much more complicated than I expected. There are requirements about deposit protection, gas safety certificates, EPCs, and something called the “How to Rent” guide that must have been issued. I have no idea whether my father did any of this properly. The letting agent says they “think” most of it was done but can’t find all the paperwork.

So my questions are: where do I even start with working out whether I can serve a valid Section 21? And if the paperwork isn’t in order, how long realistically am I looking at to sort it all out before I can give notice? Any experiences would be really helpful.

2

My husband dealt with something a bit like this years ago, a relative’s house with tenants who didn’t want to budge. Ended up selling it with them still in situ to another landlord at a discount. Not ideal but it got it done. Might be worth getting a valuation both ways, with and without tenants, so you know where you stand before making any decisions.

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@halfpenny_doris, thank you, that’s helpful to hear even if it’s not what I was hoping for. I spoke to a local estate agent yesterday who basically said the same thing. He reckoned selling with tenants in situ would knock 20 to 25 percent off what the flat would fetch with vacant possession, which is a significant amount of money.

He also mentioned that some sellers offer the tenants a cash incentive to leave voluntarily, which apparently can work out cheaper than the discount you’d take on the sale price. I have no idea what a reasonable figure would be for something like that or whether it’s even appropriate to suggest it directly. Has anyone here been through that process? I want to be fair to the tenants but I also can’t afford to just sit on this indefinitely. The solicitor handling the estate has been next to useless on the practical side of things, to be honest.