Opinions Please

FireWyrm

As some of you know, I have purchased a new house which we are moving to on Monday. However, I still have 2 months left on my tenancy agreement with this house. Originally, I had simply intended to babysit the property for the last 2 months going home at weekends, but a friend suggested that I might be able to negotiate something with the landlord in return for exiting early and letting him get on with painting and everything.

I had intended to paint anyway during those last two months and generally do everything in my power to ensure that neither the LL nor the LA had any excuse to stop my deposit. The last rental payment will be the end of September and the exit date will be October 28th.

I rang the LA today asking for the name and telephone number of the LL but they refused to give it to me. I was thinking to speak to the LL directly since the LA would have a vested interest in keeping me in the house until the AST was complete. However, they would only give me his address, not his phone number and the best they could do was ring him on my behalf and ask if he would speak to me. They claim that they did this and the LL has refused to speak to me directly.

Now, I'm frankly quite miffed. I am a good tenant, I pay my rent and apart from slipping in the shower and costing a new bath (which I paid half for), I have never done anything wrong. I was prepared to let them know that I was leaving on the 28th and that if they wanted, for a reduced rent, they could have free access to the property to do whatever they needed for a new tenant. However, since he's refused to speak to me directly, I'm inclined to ignore their standard section 21 that I will get on the 28th August and tell them about a week before the end of the tenancy that I'm not staying and let him deal with the void in the rental. I'm just feeling that his attitude is quite rude and if that's the way he feels, he can bloody well wait for entry in that case.

Is this fair? Is there anything else I can do to negotiate this, or should I just continue with the original plan which was to babysit the place until the end of the tenancy and check out on the 28th October?

pimento

Write to him.

Procrastinator333

Are you still in the fixed term? Not possible to give the 1 months notice?

You could always just make an offer, my guess is something like 2/3 of the rent would tempt the ll. E.g say rent is £750, so £1,500 still due. Offer £1k and you return the keys tomorrow - and get full deposit back. He can then quick tidy up and probably get it rented again and make extra cash. But do this both in writing to him direct and via the la.

Nenen

As you cannot be sure whether or not the letting agency is telling the truth, I would give the LL the benefit of the doubt and write him a polite letter along the lines of...

Further to the request I made to Bloggs Agency, I would like to speak to you in person regarding a matter of mutual interest. Therefore I would be most grateful if you could telephone/email me to suggest a convenient time. Kind regards etc etc

That way, if the LA hasn't told him then he has the option to speak to you and if he did know but refuses to speak to you (and I think some LL's don't want to as they understandably consider they are paying the agency a lot of money and want them to deal with any hassle) then you can still go ahead and give him minimum notice if you want.

FireWyrm

I like your idea Nenen. My friend said almost exactly the same thing, that the LA probably didnt contact him at all. If they didnt, I hope he gives them a right earful.

Any more advances on what to say in the letter? Your wording sounds like a seedy business proposition...best avoided....lol

crazycatlady1984

Heya, for what its worth I would strongly suspect that the agency did not ask the LA if he would speak to you. Understandable, as obviously they make their money from being the middle man, they dont want to be cut out, but is a bit crap if that is the case and they are lying to you!

I would agree, write a letter, and maybe just put your suggestion to him briefly in the letter

Good luck!