Ending tennency agreement early help please

barnaby-bear

mummydarling wrote: »

sorry to hijack this thread, but we are in a very similar situation. After being on the housing register for 5 years, we have finally been offered social housing. We are 2 months in to a 6 month AST agreement. We were told when we moved in we would be the last tenents as the house we currently live in is due for demolition! So in our situation, it's unlikely the house will be re-let after we leave. It's owned by the Co-op and they actually own the house.
The landlady told me yesterday we will be liable to pay rent until November, which we cannot afford to do. We've never been in arrears and the rent is paid in advance. Going to CAB tomorrow, our contract does not state anywhere what we should do if we need to end the tenency early.
Any ideas?

Basically the contract commits you to 6 months, otherwise everyone would change if something cheaper/better (as has for you) came up - the benefit is that it works two ways - you have the protection that 2 months after moving in your LL can't say actually there's a tenant prepared to pay more - go now only 8 weeks after moving in... social housing is long term a huge plus so you'd be mad not to take it, so it is porbably worth taking a loan or borrowing to cover this contract rather than turning it down - or seeing if you can be offered something after your contract ends

davidward_2

Ok thanks for all your help I forgot to say the my wife’s mother has bought a house as an investment and she is renting this to us extremely cheap


When we took our contract out the Agents said we could have 6 months or 12 months contract we aren’t even at our 5th month yet (we took 12months)so I was going to ask the agents if we could change it to a six month contract then live there on a monthly basis then when the new house is ready give our notice

mlz1413

Think about your request from the other side, you signed up for 12 months and the LL then decided that wasn't what they wanted so they ask you to change to 6 months - would that be ok? No probably not. But if they gave you notice and a bit of money towards telephoning and viewing new properties - you may go with it .

So you have already signed for 12 months as that was best for you at the time, now you have the chance of a much cheaper place you will need to ask if you can leave and will be asked to cover the LL/LA costs for finding new tenants.

But if the LL says no then they say no, you have after all signed a contract.

barnaby-bear

davidward wrote: »

Ok thanks for all your help I forgot to say the my wife’s mother has bought a house as an investment and she is renting this to us extremely cheap


When we took our contract out the Agents said we could have 6 months or 12 months contract we aren’t even at our 5th month yet (we took 12months)so I was going to ask the agents if we could change it to a six month contract then live there on a monthly basis then when the new house is ready give our notice

Why not get your MIL to rent out the other house at a market level to someone for 6 months AST and give you the difference to pay this contract....

Fire_Fox

davidward wrote: »

Ok thanks for all your help I forgot to say the my wife’s mother has bought a house as an investment and she is renting this to us extremely cheap

When we took our contract out the Agents said we could have 6 months or 12 months contract we aren’t even at our 5th month yet (we took 12months)so I was going to ask the agents if we could change it to a six month contract then live there on a monthly basis then when the new house is ready give our notice

You are aware that if you need to claim housing benefit you may struggle if you are renting from family?