Ending tenancy early - advice needed

Lo_0989

Hi everyone,

My partner and I have been renting in London for a couple of years and saving for a deposit so that we could eventually buy our own place.

Our current tenancy runs until March next year, but we are in a position to buy now and have started looking at what's on the market. We have found a place we like and have put an offer in on it, but have not started any of the legal processes involved with buying as yet.

If our offer is accepted, we'd like to end our tenancy in the next couple of months.

Looking for advice from anyone who as experience of doing this...

We know that the landlord is under no obligation to allow us to end our tenancy early (we have no break clauses) but our hope is that because where we are renting is in a desirable area, finding a new tenant to take our place would be a pretty quick process and as such, the landlord might agree to letting us leave on the basis that they would not be losing out financially.

Our questions are:

- The landlord has appointed an estate agents to manage the rental for them, so we usually deal with the estate agents and don't really have any contact with the landlord. Is it better generally to ask the agents about this first or to go direct to the landlord? Would the agents have reason to advise the landlord against this or are they likely to be helpful...?

- Should we offer to find a tenant to replace us in the property or is the agent likely to insist that they do this? (which presumably we would have to fund).

- At what part in the process should we speak to the agents/landlord about this? I'd like to ask them if they will actually allow us to do this (because if they won't allow us to, we can't afford to pay a mortgage and rent at the same time and would have to wait to buy until next year) but equally we don't really know what the timescales would be at this point as we are very early on in the buying process.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks all.

G_M

See

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5679100

Lo_0989 wrote: »

Hi everyone,


Our questions are:

- The landlord has appointed an estate agents to manage the rental for them, so we usually deal with the estate agents and don't really have any contact with the landlord. Is it better generally to ask the agents about this first or to go direct to the landlord? Would the agents have reason to advise the landlord against this or are they likely to be helpful...?
agent gets more £ if the tenancy ends - LL will have to pay them to find a new tenant.
But they are often less flexible than landlrds - there again, it depends on the LL!

- Should we offer to find a tenant to replace us in the property or is the agent likely to insist that they do this? (which presumably we would have to fund).
No. LL or agent should find replacement tenant.

- At what part in the process should we speak to the agents/landlord about this? I'd like to ask them if they will actually allow us to do this (because if they won't allow us to, we can't afford to pay a mortgage and rent at the same time and would have to wait to buy until next year) but equally we don't really know what the timescales would be at this point as we are very early on in the buying process.
Best to get an idea what atttude the LL/agent is likely to take befoe you start house-hunting.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks all.

Bossypants

Others will be better able to advise you on your query, but I just wanted to say, don't jump the gun on anyrhing until you are significantly further along in the process. Buying is a long process at the best of times, and all kinds of things can crop up during the process to further delay exchange, especially if your purchase is leasehold. I wouldn't soeak to anyone about your rental until your solicitor is well into the query process, at the earliest.