A Texas couple have seen their dream of purchasing a first home descend into a nightmare after discovering they may be sharing the property with paying tenants.
McCayleigh McDaniels thought she and her boyfriend had hit the jackpot after their landlord agreed to sell them the house they had been renting for the past two years back in June.
"We felt so excited," McDaniels told Newsweek. "This home is supposed to be our beginning of a life together. This is where we hope to start a family. We plan to be living here for as long as we can."
A couple of weeks later though, McDaniels began to suspect something was wrong. "I got an email from our utility company stating that our utilities were scheduled to be turned off," she said. "I immediately called them and we decided it must have been an error as my neighbors were currently moving out of their home and someone new was moving in."
McDaniels brushed it off at first, assuming whoever was moving in next door had given the wrong address, but a week later they received an email from an unknown address that left them stunned. "We received an email saying the home we bought had a new lease tied to it," she said. Suddenly the call about utilities made sense.
The email explained that they had signed a lease with the previous owner back on February 15 but, after learning the property had been sold, had been informed by the previous owner that their lease had been canceled. That wasn't someone they were willing to accept though and McDaniels could understand why.
McDaniels' mom has worked in real estate for 20 years, but told her she had "never seen this" before now. To McDaniels' way of thinking "leases do not get canceled just because you sold a house to someone else."
Instead, based on her research, it appeared as though the lease is instead passed on to the new owner. Whatever the truth, this turn of events has left McDaniels "scared and a little confused."
"I'm unsure of the previous owner's side of the story, and whether or not this has anything to do with our previous management company," she said. "If there is a lease agreement on a property, it is required to be disclosed when being sold."
The house is located in a college town, so it's not uncommon for tours to be conducted while someone is living there. McDaniels and her boyfriend had chosen not to renew so it's perfectly understandable that this would happen.
However, she said they were never informed about the new tenants when buying the property. "We were never notified that anyone signed a lease for the home," she said. "Upon asking if the landlords would sell us the home, I explicitly asked if anyone had signed a lease for the property, and if not, we would like to purchase the home. So, they sold it to us."
Stephanie Berman-Eisenberg, president and CEO of Carrfour Supportive Housing told Newsweek that, in the likely event that the tenants signed their agreement before the purchase of the property, like McDaniels said, it will probably remain valid.
"This means the tenants would have the right to stay until the lease expires, unless there's a legal reason to terminate it early, such as breach of contract by the tenants," she said. "The couple may want to negotiate with the tenants to buy out the lease or reach a mutual agreement for the tenants to move out earlier."
Berman-Eisenberg encouraged McDaniels to review the lease and purchase agreements, hold open conversations with the tenants and, most important of all, consult with a real estate attorney.
McDaniels said that, at the time of writing, the matter is out of their hands. "I took our attorney's advice which was to direct the lessees to the previous owners, as the issue is between them," she said. "We've stepped back since then and haven't heard anything from anyone."
Regardless of the outcome, it has amounted to one very stressful experience for the first time homeowners and one she felt compelled to share with others online.
"It's a scary thought to not know whether or not you may be kicked out of your very first home," she said. "I wanted to raise awareness and ask if anyone has been in my exact shoes. I've yet to come across anyone who has."
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