Eviction from our rental

Hello, myself and my partner moved into our current property in early December 2019 after stating that we wanted a long term rental. We moved out of our previous property due to horrendous neighbours.
Anyway, we found out last week that our landlords want to sell their house to release equity and we are therefore being evicted and our notice was served last week, which means we have three months to move out which we understand is sufficient notice from our landlords.
The difficulty is, with the current climate regarding covid-19, my partner (who is self employed) was unable to work for two months. I work for the nhs as a nurse and was fortunate to be able to continue working. Because of this we could pay all of our rent minus £250 for three months. We agreed a repayment plan with our landlords which we have been paying back monthly plus extra each month. We plan on paying the remainer arrears when our next monthly payment is due which means we won’t be in any arrears whatsoever.
After speaking with the letting agents, they said “it is still your home, don’t forget you have signed a years contract” meaning we can’t exit until our contract terminates in early December this year. But because of covid, the time of year and the lack of properties to rent on the market, where do we stand with regards to leaving before our year contract ends? Because 12 weeks is not a long time to find a new property, and if we fail to find new accommodation, we both have nowhere to go. Do you think our landlords should be lenient and allow us to leave early? Any advice would be great fully received.
Thank you.

The letting agency is only thinking of their fee from the letting . i am a landlord and have let tenants go early . There are plenty of replacement tenants and anyway the landlord wants to sell . Does the Landlord know what the agents are telling you ?

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Hello Colin, thank you for your reply. We have never spoken to our landlords as the letting agent said we can only speak via themselves. Perhaps we should email the letting agents and ask our landlords to be copied into the email and explain our circumstances.
I know this is irrelevant, but we have decorated the house professionally and also transformed the garden. We both are very clean and house proud and have never had any issues with landlords previously. We have a couple of viewings booked but nothing is certain which is why we feel we need to go earlier than our one year contract.

Typical agency statement. I have found that landlords are usually much nicer than letting agents. I have made so many bad experiences with letting agents that I will not rent from any agency anymore in my life.
My experience lets me suspect that agents are often not very honest when they forward communication. I don’t think the agency can be forced to give out your landlord’s phone number, but they have to inform you about the landlord’s address. Nobody can stop you from writing the landlord a letter and asking them to call you back.

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Hello, thank you for your reply. We feel completely let down by the letting agents, we’ve had zero support from them apart from the call they made telling us we’re being evicted. I completely agree with what you have said. Our previous landlords were absolutely brilliant and they let us speak to them directly and we never had any troubles.
Thank you for your advice, it is much appreciated.

Your landlords address should be on your Tenancy Agreement but agents must supply it.
They want their house back to sell but only want it back on the exact date as specified. I wouldn’t have any problem letting you go early.
Would have thought it would be better for the landlord too as no one will be looking to buy over Christmas.

Hello Mr.T, thank you for your reply. I have contacted the letting agents this morning and asked them to forward on an email to our landlords, hopefully they will do this and we can then liaise directly with them instead. I would have thought that it would be easier to release us early too because as you said, nobody purchases property during the Christmas period.
We still haven’t had any luck in getting another place yet, trouble is when something does come up, there are lots of people making applications making it harder for us. Fingers crossed something comes up soon. Thanks again!

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