Rental with right to buy: interesting possibility for both parties

Rental with right to buy of an apartament is a kind of contract that is becoming everyday more usual in real estate sector: it is not new, but during the last years has been shown as a legal practice very practical for both parties: on one hand, we have the owner of the apartament (possible seller) and, on the other hand, the person interested in using that apartament (it is the tenant and possible buyer).

For the first one it is very interesting because he/she is renting his/her property and he/she knows he/she has a buyer for his/her apartament (taking into account that he/she accepts the price and duration terms); for the second one it is also interesting because from  the first moment has the apartament that he/she needs and is going to be entitled to buy the mentioned apartament in the moment he/she wants; in adittion the rental amounts paid will be used as a total or partial discount at the moment of buying.

The Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos is not providing us of an specific regulation for the rental with right to buy business and, therefore, it is a business that permits both parties to freely agree the most important issues in this type of contract.

We should remind that the rental with right to buy is a rental agreement that allows one part to use an apartament and, even more, to buy the abovementioned apartament during the duration term specifically agreed in the contract.

The most important issues in this type of contract are:

• The rental duration period and the duration period in which the tenant has the right to buy the apartment. First and second period are not always the same (altough normally the second one is shorter than the first one): in fact, the rental duration shoud respect what the law is establishing at any time and, nevertheless, the duration period in which the tenant has the right to buy is possible to be freely agreed between the parties. In this second case, knowing that the law is not establishing any concrete period, the parties normally use to agree a maxim period to buy between 2 and 3 years.
• The rental price, that normally is a higher amount than the ordinary rental price.
• The price of sell of the apartment, that normally  is been fixed in the initial moment and  is indicated in the contract, altough sometimes both parties decide not to fix it because they prefer to fix later on. In this sense, it is very important also to agree wich percentatge of the rental amounts already paid are going to mean the discount when the tenat buies the apartment.
• The deposit amount, that usually is equal to one month rental and that is also going to mean part of the discount when the tenat buies the apartment. Also both parties can agree an inicial amount that the tenat should give to the owner of the apartament at the moment of signature of the contract.