What happens to your active lease when your landlord sells the property you are renting? (sale, leases) - Pittsburgh - Pennsylvania (PA) - City-Data Forum

displacedsoutherner · 09-09-2012, 02:19 PM

I was wondering if anyone knew what to do in a situation where one's landlord puts a house on the market and plans to sell although the current tenants still have 8+ month's to go on the lease. I have been paid all rent on time and have not broken the lease in any way. When the the property sells does the lease transfer and have to be upheld by the new owner or am I required to vacate? Any help would be very appreciated!

ML North · 09-09-2012, 02:53 PM

So this happened to me once, actually, and the only thing that changed was where I mailed my rent check. I'm not an attorney and this is not legal advice, but I would guess that the new landlord will have to honor your lease unless there is specific language in the lease agreement that says otherwise.

madg0at · 09-09-2012, 02:58 PM

First of all you should thoroughly review your lease documents. If your lease contains a termination clause upon sale of the property you have your answer.

If your lease does not speak to termination upon sale then PA law controls and there is no cause that I am aware of in the landlord-tenant act that allows for termination of a residential lease except in cases of lease term expiration, non-payment or other material breach of the lease.

In short, unless your lease says otherwise the new owner will assume the lease.

IANAL so your mileage may vary.

Hemlock140 · 09-09-2012, 02:58 PM

That can vary by state, but generally, unless there is a clause in the lease specifying an option to end the lease in case of a sale, the new owner is obligated to fulfill the terms of the lease. Often they will try to buy you out if they intend to move in. If they bought as an investment, you can expect a big rent increase if you want to stay when the old one does expire. Read your lease, and see if there is any reference to this situation. Most people don't read their lease carefully and miss things like this.

Pitt Chick · 09-09-2012, 03:36 PM

The people renting the house my son bought had to vacate.
They did not read their lease (they went to month to month after two annual - they were there over three years), and they were quite mad. Fortunately, they did not damage the property....

I_Like_Spam · 09-09-2012, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by displacedsoutherner

I was wondering if anyone knew what to do in a situation where one's landlord puts a house on the market and plans to sell although the current tenants still have 8+ month's to go on the lease. I have been paid all rent on time and have not broken the lease in any way. When the the property sells does the lease transfer and have to be upheld by the new owner or am I required to vacate? Any help would be very appreciated!

Depends on the lease, some of the standard lease forms can terminate the lease 60 days after the property changes hands.

Usually it doesn't make a difference if the new landlord intends to continue to be a landlord. But if he wants to move into the building himself or use it for another purpose, then it becomes problematic.

JanND · 09-09-2012, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ML North

So this happened to me once, actually, and the only thing that changed was where I mailed my rent check. I'm not an attorney and this is not legal advice, but I would guess that the new landlord will have to honor your lease unless there is specific language in the lease agreement that says otherwise.

Unless the new owner intends to occupy the property. Check your state LL tenant rights.

selltheburgh · 09-09-2012, 06:15 PM

The lease should transfer to the new owner, but many leases have a "sales clause" of 30-90 days.

heartchya · 09-09-2012, 08:29 PM

We went through this when buying our duplex. I was moving in one half and my sister in the other. Luckily we ended up finding a place with no one living in it. For some of the others place we saw most had verbiage concerning if the property sold. One did not and we were going to try to buy them out but we ended up picking a different property.

XRiteMA98 · 09-10-2012, 08:48 AM

Few years back I was looking to buy a duplex and I would have kept the tenants but that came with it but the tenants made it so difficult to get an appointment to see the place that clearly they didn;t want the property to change hands. They liked it there; they lived there for 8 years. There were 3 adults living in that duplex and they claimed they worked crazy hours; did not returned any of the realtor's calls and ultimately I don;t know how I got an appt but I did. The property had problems; I didn't buy it but I laughed after that thinking how difficult tenants made it for that guy to sell. He didn't sell it to this day. He took the sign down.

ANother duplex I saw, also rented, the tenants started to point out problems to me: leaks in the ceiling, a huge hole in the floor in the bathroom, no insulation in the attick... oh my god, I didn;t know how to run faster...

Your answer is in the lease you signed. If there is no specification of this sort I suggest you ask an attorney. But since you say you have 8 months on a lease I should say to stay calm. Properties don't sell overnight and by the time they sell your lease might be up anyway.