Working with current tenants when listing the house

[Esther Tama]

Hi BP family,

I'm closing on my first rental property - SFH - next week. The purchase agreement noted that the current tenant/owner has 30 days to move out from the date of closing. I told my agent that the property management company would like to prep and put it up for listing as soon as it closes, which entails showing it to potential new tenants. My agent seems to think the current tenant/owners have the 30 days until I can do such thing, but I feel like as the new owner, I have the right to go in and do what needs to be done so that it can be occupied right away. What are my legal rights here? HELP!

[Sue Richey]

Esther - when a sale happens, the lease terms are still in place.  You or your agent might have wanted to review the lease and the terms associated with marketing the property, etc.  In our leases, we have a clause that states the the owner can market the property 60 days prior to the lease ending so it depends on what that tenant's lease with the previous owner said and when they were allowed to begin marketing the property so if you haven't looked at that yet, you should look at the lease.  You could have written something like this into your sales agreement as well and created a separate addendum with the tenant stating you would begin marketing the property at closing.  If there is no way for you to do showings, you could still start Pre-marketing it now on various sites and just say "no showings until a certain date".  Hope that helps!