Hi group,
I hope someone here can give me their thoughts on this.
I own a 3 BD house in CA and have rented it out to a wonderful family, our rental agreement is for one year and started on 4/2006 ending on 4/2007
My question is: I changed my mind and am now wanting to sell my house instead of renting it out. Can I sell my house any time soon even before the rental lease expires? If no, what would happen if I go ahead and sell it anyways? What are the tenant’s rights in this situation if I do sell my house way before the experation date of the rental agreement?
I offered to sell this house to my current tenants but they are in no position of buying it.
Any suggestions,
I thank you,
Ladybug
I don’t know about California (“The land of…”, oops, sorry!) but in sane, rational places you can sell the rental but if there is a lease contract, the buyer must honor the contract until it is complete. Now if the tenants agree to allow the lease to be broken (mutual benefit), then that’s all well and good.
Check with the California tenant/landlord laws. There are other California landlords here, so I’m sure we’ll hear more specifics…
Keith
HAHA! 
painful but so true!
Thanks.
Actually my tenants are great people but of course they had plans of renting the property for a long terms (as they told me last week). The other thing they did mentioned was that they wanted to stay at least for the entire lease period (no earlier) and that if I intend to sell the property before the end of the lease that they do not want to be bothered with people coming in to see the property as this will be a very long and frustrating situation for them. (their own words)
I’m wondering if they have a good point / case here, If they do have a good case and legal rights for me not to bother tenants with views of the property while the lease is active, then I will have second thoughts about putting the property for sale for now to avoid any legal issues. But first I need to make sure that’s the case as far as tenant rights. (I have searched online for the tenant’s rights in CA but I did not see anything about this matter at all)
Thanks sooo much, and keep them coming please.
LadyBug
Here’s the most valuable link you need as Calif LL; its off the state website.
http://www.dca.ca.gov/legal/landlordbook/
if you scroll down to the section “Living in the Unit”, you will find that YES, you can show the unit for sale upon given written notice with specifics and between 8-5pm during weekdasy. And no, the tenant does NOT have thr right to say no, you can not come in becuase there are not going to be there.
Also, the new owners will take possession of the home subject to the existing lease.
Now, there is the practicality of the situation. Your tenants can be a real pain in the backside during the showing and creat a hostile environment which could drive away potential bona fide buyers. As a matter of practice, it is common to lower the rent during the showing period to offset the hassle (this is not required, hwoever).
In order to get them to move out, offer C-A-S-H. Nothing satisfies like Cash money. Maybe something like 1 month rent and some extra cash to cover moving cost and hassle. Just consider the cost to get the deal done. There was many ways to structure the deal (one example is below)
Lastly, is do you think someome will buy it as an owner occupied. If you think it likely, the no one is going to want to buy and wait 6 months for the lease to end (assuming above described efforts fail).
I successfully did this a couple of years back. At first my tenant was pretty unhappy, but I reduced rent during the showing time, made a deal where the last month was free (once the house was in escrow), my agent helped her find a new home and some cash money on the table to help with moving cost, setting up new utililies, etc. In the end it cost me maybe $1500 and I gave her a washer dryer I had in storage, but my net profit from the deal was $55k so it was worth it.