Buying property with tenant, question about exisitng managing agent
General Discussion

Lousette
Lousette
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2 Posts
10 years ago
0
Hello, I am new to the forum and hope somebody has a little advice for me.

My husband and I are buying a leasehold flat with an existing tenant. The tenant has an AST which was renewed in July for a fixed term of 12 months. (no concerns regarding the tenant, he has been living there for over 2 years and the property is in excellent condition).

The seller has used an agent to manage the property for him and we stated upfront that we would not require an agent and would be managing the property ourselves. The landlord, tenant and agents name all appear on the front of the lease agreement. We are taking the agreement over and our solicitor will notify the tenant of new landlord and serve any required paperwork as well as dealing with the transfer of the Deposit which the agent currently has with TDS (I will be registering with TDS also through RLA's Deposit Guard).

My question is this. Does the current managing agent have any rights to charge us any fees. My common sense tells me not as even though we are taking over the tenancy we have not signed any agreement with the management agent and the seller should be settling any outstanding charges.

I haven't brought this up with my solicitor as I was sure it wasn't a problem, but the more I think about it the more I worry that we could be in for a nasty shock and that I need to get something in writing to protect us. I can of course still bring this up with my solicitor, but we are on the brink of exchanging contracts (date already set for Tuesday) and I do not want to delay the process unless I have a legitimate concern. Was wondering if anyone has any views on this. Thank you.

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