This sometimes happens, tenants can buy the property rented for several years or the place he rents is bought during their lease. How is it going ? The details of Charlie Cailloux, advisor for Particular to particular and the PAP.fr website.
franceinfo: When the owner wants to sell the accommodation, is that necessarily bad news for the tenant?
No not necessarily ! For the landlord, there are two ways to sell a dwelling that is rented to a tenant. We can give him leave, that is to say terminate the lease, but in this case, we must respect very specific conditions that we will see later.
Or, we can sell the accommodation without touching the rental contract, we sell the accommodation to a buyer, with the tenant in the premises. In this second case, the rental contract continues under exactly the same conditions, only the name of the owner changes: the rental contract, the rent, the duration of the contract are not modified; for the tenant, it is perfectly painless.
In general, the owner who wants to sell prefers to give leave to the tenant?
Yes, it is, for two reasons. On the one hand, it is easier to find a buyer when the accommodation is vacant. An occupied home is only of interest to investors, not people looking for a home to occupy. And concretely, it’s easier to organize visits, there’s no need to settle with the tenant (it’s not always easy to find time slots that suit everyone).
And on the other hand, the presence of a tenant sometimes allows the buyer to negotiate the sale price downwards: does he pay the rent well? Does he maintain the accommodation well? Has the rent been set correctly? These risks are bargaining arguments for the buyer.
And if the owner gives leave to sell, what are the conditions that he must respect?
The main condition is that he can only give notice for the expiry of the contract. For an empty rental contract, this means that the landlord can only give notice once every 3 years, respecting a notice period of 6 months. It is often because the due date is far off that the owner is forced to sell the occupied accommodation. In a furnished rental, it’s much simpler since the contract is only for one year.
When the owner gives leave for sale, does the tenant have priority to buy?
In empty rental, yes! He has a right of first refusal: the lessor must offer to buy the accommodation he occupies, before looking for a buyer. On the other hand, the tenant has no advantages on the price, the owner freely offers the price he wants.
In furnished rentals, this right of first refusal does not exist, but the owner has every interest in first offering the tenant to buy; in case of agreement, it is the simplest solution for everyone!