The sell and rent back sector has been in the news a great deal recently for all the wrong reasons. It was recently reported that there are some unethical companies out there, who do not provide what they promise, as more than one family has found out in the past. Advice from one homeowner when reflecting on their own horror story is I would consider companies who offered me the chance to sell my house and rent it back very carefully and I would be wary, as I did not get the deal I thought .
The homeowner in question talked with the BBC when she described the horror she and her family had been through when they looked into and went ahead with selling their home and renting it back with a company. The couple has a valuation made of their home and was told it was worth £195,000 at which point they decided to sell and rent back for a period of 12 months. However before the deal was completed the company said there had been a typing error and their home was actually only worth £145,000. Upon hearing they stood to lose £50,000 on the sale, they had second thoughts, only to be told that if they did not go ahead with the sale then they would have to pay £17,000 for fees that had totalled up so far. Of course, the couple could not find this amount of money in cash and so thought they had no alternative but to go through with the sale and went on to do so. However, problems did not stop there, they continued after the sale when the company kept increasing the rent on the property. The company eventually defaulted on mortgage payments for the property and the home was repossessed by the bank, which saw the couple out of pocket and out of the property.
This is just one of the horror stories that have been brought to the attention of homeowners, which has led to Shelter and the Citizens Advice warning those considering selling and renting back to be very careful. Companies offering homeowners the chance to sell to avoid repossession do not pay the full asking price. In some cases, homeowners are usually offered 20 below the value, however with others it may be up to as much as 60 below the market value. If this is not bad enough, some companies are continually raising the rent and of course, there is no lifetime guarantee of being able to rent back.
However, this is not to say that all sell and rent companies offer the same bad deal, there are ethical, established companies out there. If I wanted to sell my house and rent it back, I would ensure that the company I chose to sell to was regulated by the Financial Services Authority. This at least means the company has been assessed and approved by the FSA and is regulated, which means they have to follow certain rules regarding the consumers best interests and offering them a fair deal. As with any situation in life, there are some good and rotten apples out there and when it comes to companies offering sell and rent solutions, this saying should be remembered.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")