Sale - Selling a leased property

Occasionally, life plans change. You may have signed a lease agreement fully intending on owning the property for its duration – but you now realise that you need to sell your investment before the lease expires. What to do? 

Firstly, make your plans known to your property manager and inform your selling agent that there is a lease in place. Unless mitigating circumstances allow, your tenant’s lease cannot be terminated for the purpose of sale. 

Via your property manager, communicate with your tenants about your intention to sell and try to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. They may themselves be looking to break their lease earlier and move on – or they may be encouraged to do so with a reduced rent for the sales period or other reasonable inducements such as agreeing to release their bond early (if they are a trusted tenant). 

Take advice from your property manager on this score – if you have a long lease to go and a tenant who has no intention on finishing their lease earlier, it may be worth your while to consider waiting to sell – particularly if their presentation of your property isn’t as wonderful as it could be. 

Every situation of this kind is different – so keep the lines of communication open between property manager, tenant and even potential purchaser.