Hi all, To cut a long story short my landlord turned up 8 months ago unannounced to tell us he was selling the house and wanted us out in 2/3 months, This wasn’t possible as we still had a long period left on our agreement although we didn’t mind moving so he could have his house back. We then decided to buy a house keeping our agent informed along the way, our purchased ended up taking an age almost exactly 6 months and we let our agent know and then gave notice 2 months ! He has decided to sell the house and has excepted and offer within a few days and is in the process of selling, but annoyingly has decided that he dose not want to free us from our agreement and along with the agent want us to pay the rent until his sell completes! Which could be any amount of months! I feel really hard done by as we had no intention of moving until he turned up at our door 8 months ago!! Also they are saying we have to be out when our notice period ends December 9th even if we carry on paying rent past that period if his sale hasn’t completed !
Sorry it’s long but does this sound correct to you all ?
It does sound unreasonable. Are you still within the fixed term? If you are your notice would be invalid unless there is a break clause. If your notice is valid clearly he cant still charge you rent.
Given the circumstances it would be reasonable for ll to release you. He will need vacant possession to sell so if he doesn’t release you then you can refuse to leave when he is due to complete and he will lose his sale so it’s in his interests to release you.
Your notice has no legal effect then. You can offer to mutually surrender the tenancy to release you and enable his sale to complete. He doesn’t have to accept this but if he doesnt then he cant insist on you moving out and therefore you would be able to stop his sale. It is in his interests to agree if he wants to sell.
I would give your LL a choice - you both sign a deed of surrender at the mutually agreed date OR you don’t move out after the sale date because your legal contract continues. He can’t even evict you now. When somebody wants to have their cake and eat it, it’s always a good practice to put your foot down. And you legally can.
If youve given 2 months and you have all the previous conversations I dont think they have a leg to stand on. Greedy landlords give the rest of us a bad name. I cant stand them.
100%. Such people, LL or not, make me so angry. So self-serving, so uninterested in how it affects other people.
To be fair, there’re plenty on both sides. One of such TT has just left, giving us less than two weeks notice. And we’re actually glad that we don’t have to deal with him anymore.
That’s the trump card you have, Spursa1. They can’t exchange the contracts until you moved out. Use it to your advantage. With unscrupulous LL that’s the way to go. As long as you don’t break the law, of course ))).
Thank you all for your replies it gives me some reassurance how im feeling right in now
Ive just received an email back form from the agent after questioning the situation today again, reply is as follows
(Hi
Thanks for the email and I appreciate your frustrations
As discussed you are liable for the rent on the property until the end of your tenancy contract, any overpayment you may have made will be refunded to you
The property cannot exchange contracts until you have moved out and therefore once we get a little closer to that stage I will keep you updated so you can plan accordingly
I will keep working with the Landlord so you can get a clear plan of action as we move forward
Kind regards)
such a shame as its put a dampener on something that should have been a really joyful experience buying our first home
i cant afford both payment for long so i may have to just stop paying the rent! if this drags on
Yes, you can agree with LL to forgo a couple of months’ rent in exchange of you vacating the property without them having to evict you (which is guaranteed to cost them their sale). Or he can let you go earlier.
And don’t feel guilty about it. The problem is LL’s making.
@spursa1 Write back saying that you are planning to speak to the Council about subletting it to them for someone on their homelessness list for the remainder of your contract. That should make them think again. They will tell you that this is in breach of your tenancy agreement, which it probably is, but there shouldn’t be any losses to them, so they won’t be able to sue you and the only sanction they can apply is to seek to end your tenancy, which is what you want anyway.