Buying new property with issues - no EICR or Right to rent!

Tenancy Types and Management

We are currently in the throws of purchasing a new property. We have never purchased a property before with tenants in situ and with a future tenancy in place but we are fortunate to be landlords already and as members of the NRLA are up to date with changes. Ideally we want to complete first week of August to have 3 weeks to repaint etc

We are hoping to purchase a 4 bed property, currently let to students with an end of tenancy on the 31st July 22 (yet to see the current tenancy) and we have seen a tenancy agreement for a set of 4 new students commencing the 1st September 22.

Two initial major concerns is that the current owners have not done an electrical inspection on the house since 2011 thus no EICR! No idea what they are thinking!! Firstly they are breaking the law and secondly I would have thought that the property, which is a Victorian terrace, will require significant financial investment to get it ship shape for even achieving an EICR! Are they able to do ASAP or should we get our electrician to do a report on how much to would need to do to make compliant?

Secondly they have not carried out right to rent checks on the future tenancy (and probably not current), nor able to provide relevant safety documentation to these tenants (as above), so does this make the agreements null and void? Plus how does it work when (and if) we ever complete, the future tenancy agreement will be under former owners and not us. Are we able to speak to the future tenants and request them to resign a new and proper tenancy agreement with us (obviously under same terms). This puts us in quite a dangerous position as we wouldn’t complete until the start of August and then only 3 weeks until 1st September start date.

One final point is that it has apparently been rented since it was purchased by the current owners in 2011. No HMO license on the property required due to number of tenants. I am telling our solicitors that I insist that the owners get a certificate of lawful use from our local city council. Am I right to think this is standard practice and we would be negligent of us if we didn’t?

There seems to be quite a few major concerns and the current landlords are illegal in several aspects. Do we pull out or do we plough on (already 2.5 months since sale agree) and insist that they get their skates on to fulfil the big issues such as lack of EICR and CLU. If we complete in August then we won’t get involved with flaws of the current tenancy.

I would be greateful of any advice and thanks for reading this long read.