Collected the keys to a rental property but today the house sale fell through, where do I stand?

dannylaura

After 2 house purchases fell through earlier this year, when we managed to get a confirmed sale agreed on ours we decided to rent a property for 6 months to give us some breathing space in finding a suitable new home to buy. We’re 4 weeks away from completing the sale on our house so we agreed to collect the keys to the rental property on Monday so that we could move gradually. 

Today we received an email from the solicitor looking after our sale to say that due to CoronaVirus all conveyancing was on hold (and could be cancelled) until further notice, this could be weeks or months. 

Because we can’t afford to pay both mortgage & rental for a number of months, and we’re now at risk of losing the sale on our house we decided to cancel the rental before it was too late. 

Even though this is completely out of our hands the estate agent want us to continue paying the rent until another renter can be found, plus pay the costs of advertising the property again & all administration costs. 

Where do we stand here? Should we have to pay this, given the circumstances? 

Jeremy535897

Look at the terms of your tenancy and they will tell you how quickly you can get out of it.