The simple answer is yes, you can start selling your house even with tenants still renting in it. There are advantages and disadvantages to either selling with tenants and without. One advantage to selling while tenants are still there is you can start the process faster, as opposed to waiting until the last lease term’s up. However, it’s hard to find a willing buyer to take on a rental property with lessors still residing. An empty house might be easier to sell. And with tenants still living in the property, you will need to coordinate house viewings with them. This poses a challenge if the tenants are not cooperative.
Tenant Rights When Landlord Sells Property — Florida
As a landlord, you have all the rights to sell your rental property. However, your tenants are entitled to their own set of rights, too. Before putting up your property for sale, make sure you know your rights and your tenant’s. This kind of information can help you avoid any legal issues when you put your rental up for sale in the market.
If your tenants have a lease term, you can’t just spontaneously evict them especially with an existing rental contract. This means you might need to wait until the last lease term ends before you can officially sell your Florida property. If your tenants have a month-to-month lease term, it’s faster than waiting for a tenant’s yearly lease term to end.
Knowing the Lease Terms of your Florida Rental
As mentioned, knowing whether your tenant has a monthly or yearly lease term can help you determine where you stand as a landlord. This is the first factor you should consider when you are planning to sell your Florida property. Can you sell a house with tenants in it? Yes. is it faster? No. You can kick start the process of house selling earlier, but this doesn’t guarantee that you can sell it faster. If your written contract with your tenant is based on a year-to-year lease, the State of Florida requires you to give a 60-day notice before the lease ends to notify your tenant that they will need to vacate the rental. If your lease is monthly-based, then the notice needs to be given to the tenant no later than 15 days before the end of the monthly lease.
Of course it’s ideal to have a written agreement, but for cases where there is none, the lease is assumed to be based on the frequency of payment. If your tenant pays you weekly, then this follows a weekly lease. If your tenant pays you monthly, then it’s a monthly lease. Even without a written document, you can use this as a basis when determining their lease.
Again, you should give your tenants a written notice before their lease ends as courtesy to allow them time to look for another place before you sell. You can use this documentation as proof that you asked them to vacate before their end-lease, in case any issues arise. Selling a rental property may be tricky, especially with difficult or stubborn tenants.
What are the Florida Tenant Eviction Laws?
- Pay rent or Quit notice– This law is pretty much straightforward and self-explanatory. If your tenant cannot pay rent, you can send them a “pay rent or quit” notice. Once they receive the notice, they have 7 days to settle their rent dues. Otherwise, you are legally entitled to evict them. Hence, the “pay rent or quit (move out)”. In this case, it’s the landlord’s prerogative to send the notice whenever they want after the rent has lapsed. Other landlords are more lenient, but this eviction law entitles them to legally evict non-paying tenants.
- Cure or Quit– This law pertains to an instance where a tenant violates any of the lease terms, which they need to “cure” or else move out. This law applies to specific rules stipulated in a contract, such as the no-pet policy. Or, if a tenant lets an unauthorized person live in the property, like when you sublease without permission from your landlord. One of the most common violations is disrupting the peace and quiet in the property, like when a tenant throws a loud party until late at night. The landlord typically gives a timeframe with which they should fix their violation, anywhere between 3 to 30 days.
- Unconditional Quit notice– This eviction law applies to multiple offenses or offenses that can’t be corrected. For example, paying your rent late several times can lead to your landlord sending you an unconditional quit notice. Another scenario is when the offenses cannot be cured, such as making major renovations to the rental without approval of the landlord, damaging the property, or transacting illegal activities in the premises. In such scenarios, the landlord can issue an unconditional quit notice to forcefully evict the tenant.
Deciding to Sell House with Tenants
After knowing Florida eviction laws and your specific lease terms, the next thing to do is figuring out whether you want to sell with the tenants or not. When you have a timeframe in mind, you can decide when to start the selling process. If you decide to sell your rental property while there are existing tenants, you will need to notify them in writing.
- Explicitly state your reason for selling
- Use formal language to create a professional document
- Specify the timeline of your request for tenants to vacate
- Include any formalities, such as rent or deposits
- Proofread the notice and be sure to send it to each tenant
Whether you sell the rental property now with tenants or you wait for the lease to end, you should also decide how you are going to sell it.
Selling by owner means you do everything on your own, all the paperwork and leg work. You can also opt to sell with a real estate agent, but this means you’re willing to give them a commission fee by percentage. You’ll be cutting your takeaway amount by a significant amount, but you will have support and assistance all throughout. Lastly, you can sell your house fast to a cash homebuyer, such as Home Seller Heaven.
Working with Home Seller Heaven to Sell your Florida Rental Property
Selling directly to cash buyers such as Home Seller Heaven can help save you from all the unnecessary stress that’s common with house selling. For one, you don’t need to make any repairs at all, meaning you don’t have to worry about fixing up once your tenants vacate the property. You don’t need to renovate anything at all either, since you don’t need to improve the curb appeal for a direct cash buyer. In as fast as 7 days, we help home sellers dispose of their unwanted properties for a fair cash offer. We buy houses, Miami, so you can get on with living your best lives!
If you have enough time, you can opt to work with us as we are also real estate experts. We will help you sell your property to the right buyer with the highest offer that you are targeting. We offer various home selling solutions that are fit for your situation!
