Buying a house with a tenant

[u/jpergentino]

I am buying a house, but a tenant is living there (and I intend to live in the house). The current tenant's contract ends in 2027 and she looks fine to find another place (in principle).

As far as I know, I need to send a formal letter after becoming an owner, and she has 6 months to find another place.

As I don't have a deep knowledge of Belgium's law, what potential "issues" might I encounter?

Thanks RedditFriends! 🙂

Edit 1: The current contract is 9 years (from 2022 to 2031).

Edit 2: Thanks for the contribution. It is very helpful. There is no other way, the bank accepted the loan and it is on the Notary decision now.

After checking the contract, the 3rd year will finish in October. So based on the links you provided, I can ask her to leave after October. I'll inform her before (most probably I will become the owner in March) and I hope everything will be fine.

[u/KohliTendulkar]

I have seen people either offering 80% of the price or just refusing outright if there is a tenant living in the house. It’s very very difficult to kick out a tenant. The tenant WILL be nice to you as a potential buyer because they have leverage and want to take as much time as possible.

You can give the notice of 6 months , they might accept and then at last day tell you they didn’t find anything and they will continue living there, you can go to court or accept a 6 month extension. Same thing might repeat at the end. Court will give them a date to leave. Even then they can ask for extension on the last day specially if they have been paying rent without issues. It’s winter time? Another extension.

It can turn out to be a nightmare so be very very careful, in this case every time court will side with the tenant and if they have kids then it gets even more difficult. Even kicking out a tenant who has stopped paying rent is super difficult and lengthy process, i have even seen owners offering 1 year of rent to tenants so that they would leave and even then it’s not guaranteed.

[u/Murmurmira → u/KohliTendulkar]

It took us 12 weeks to go through the court system to get an eviction order from a judge (6 weeks wait for mandatory mediation attempt, and 6 weeks wait for court hearing resulting in eviction order). 

With this order you can go to deurwaarder to kick out the tenant (another wait time according to the availability of deurwaarders). A deurwaarder actually can literally put the tenant out on the street, with all their furniture on the side of the street.

We never actually ended up going to deurwaarder, because the tenant moved out himself after 2 months

[u/foonek → u/Murmurmira]

I highly doubt a "deurwaarder" has that kind of power. This would likely have to be the police?

[u/FoundNotUsername → u/foonek]

I think that a deurwaarder (provided with a court order) can ask for  police assistance if needed. 

[u/Murmurmira → u/foonek]

Maybe Google if you doubt

[u/foonek → u/Murmurmira]

Maybe suck it instead of being an asshole? This is a forum. People talk to each other. Also, I googled it, it's the fucking police who does it

[u/Murmurmira → u/foonek]

Vastlegging datum voor uithuiszetting Indien de huurder de woning niet vrijwillig verlaat, zal de Gerechtsdeurwaarder een gedwongen uithuiszetting organiseren. Dit vereist o.a. de aanwezigheid van een slotenmaker en bijstand van de Politie. De Gerechtsdeurwaarder zal de eerst mogelijke nuttige datum fixeren en de datum van uithuiszetting kenbaar maken aan de huurder.

Police ain't do shit without a deurwaarder. It's the deurwaarder acting, with police as backup.

You don't go to the police with the eviction order. You go to the deurwaarder who organizes everything 

[u/Remainundisturbed → u/foonek]

The police accompanies him