Ending a commercial lease with no paperwork

[PT13578]

I am interested in buying a commercial property for my business. The property has a tenant and we have been told the tenancy is 'at will'. There is no paper work. The tenant is paying their rent on time, but the rent is significantly below market rates - about 1/10 of what they should be paying The tenant has been in occupation since 1999. We would need to ask the tenant to leave as we wish to redevelop the property (it is a very dilapidated building and a yard and we wish to use the land to build premises for ourselves. . The property is an auction property so we have very little time to work out what to do - I know there is risk to this, but the cost reflects that risk and so it is still very much worth considering.

I have read up on the tenancy at will situation and I can't find any reason that we should not be able to ask the tenant to leave (and it seems that selling the property would in essence end the tenancy at will anyway). But I was wondering if there was anything that could trip us up here that I should be aware of, such as the tenant making claims that they have a different kind of verbal agreement for instance? We have time after buying the property to give them proper and reasonable notice as we would need to apply for planning permission anyway, but I do need to be sure there is no way we could be stuck with a tenant we cannot ask to leave.

Thank you.