Blog: I've seen a few tenanted properties on sale at auctions where the buyers have no opportunity to view the property before hand.
All you have access to are the legal documents and you can of course do a drive-by viewing of the exterior.
Is this normal practice? Anyone got experiences / advice they might want to share?
(Shelling out money on property you havent seen the inside of sounds a bit worrying!)
Blog Reply: Make sure you get the legal pack and ensure that there are no arrears and there is a vaild AST in place. It could be that they are trying to palm off a dodgy tenant.
Blog: If an AST is in place I presume this will be ok? can you just remove the tenant?
Blog Reply: Not always - I came across an auction property where the tenant was on an AST, had large arrears and when it went to court, they were signed off as being ill. The judge halted the case saying the defendent could not be expected to go through the stress of eviction, basically giving them a licence to not pay the rent!
Blog: robably just an isolated horror story though.
Blog Reply: I get ill - I couldn't possibly handle the stress of having an empty property! Poor little me!
Blog Reply: I bought one like that in the Allsops Feb Auction. I will let you know how it develops since I have been a bit tardy in getting the new AST signed, after which the Housing Benefit should pay the rent.
