My fiance and I are currently leasing a house. Lease ends 9/30. We have been casually looking at houses to buy and came across one we really love so we put an offer in yesterday. House was priced to sell and the agent that showed us the house indicated the sellers wanted to close late June / early July. We'd be okay with that, but how should we handle our existing lease and communication to landlord of the rental? Our lease requires 45 days notice of termination before expiration date. Should we just wait and out and continue "living" in the rental and give them 45+ days notice?

Congrats on moving forward to home ownership. I had recent clients who were facing the same situation. They gave their landlord early notification and he let them out of the last two months of rent. It allowed him to get the house ready for the next school cycle.

On a side note, one of the commandments when buying a home is to not spend money on things like furniture or a new car. Or in your case, wedding expenses. Be careful that you don't harm your credit before closing.

Close call. You want to close no sooner then July 6-7th. That way you do not have a first payment until 9-1. So worst case you have one double payment. I would hesitate to give notice until you are confident that you will close. There are several issues that have to be determined. Pre-approval, inspection, loan reviewed by the lender, appraisal. All these steps are required and any could block your purchase.

I would pursue the deal and not give notice until at least until an appraisal is done and by that time the 45 day notice has little affect.

SteveBott said:

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Close call. You want to close no sooner then July 6-7th. That way you do not have a first payment until 9-1. So worst case you have one double payment. I would hesitate to give notice until you are confident that you will close. There are several issues that have to be determined. Pre-approval, inspection, loan reviewed by the lender, appraisal. All these steps are required and any could block your purchase.

I would pursue the deal and not give notice until at least until an appraisal is done and by that time the 45 day notice has little affect.

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+1

Also we have always given some money back to our tenants when they vacate early. It gives us time to leisurely paint and make small repairs.

Also if you want mortgage info I'm available. Contact info is in my profile

Great advice and close to what I expected. Thank you all for your input! I am going to wait it out a little longer before I let the landlord know anything. In our offer, we put July 8th as a target close date.

I should note I have been working hard to get some debt paid off and was not planning on any major purchases right now. Her vehicle has one payment left and I'm down to nine payments left on mine. Thankfully her parents are taking care of the wedding expenses for the most part so I don't envision anything major right now on that front. If this house doesn't work out, we're not in a huge hurry to purchase a home unless we come across another one we absolutely fall in love with. The original plan was to purchase early next year (after wedding, honeymoon, holidays, etc.).

Steve- I'll be in touch possibly as early as this evening if you're available.

I'm not a 9-5 guy so call anytime in the evening. I usually like to conference call with both of you so y'all have the same info directly and ask questions. But that is up to you.

That will be fine. We already received a pre-approval from a lender an agent referred us too so we could get an offer in yesterday, but I definitely want to make an informed decision moving forward.