Rescind tenancy notice

Burg9

Currently a private tenant in a UK property managed via an estate agent. We're working through a house purchase at the moment so trying to juggle handling in our rental notice. I've just been told by my estate agent that I can give my 30 days notice but then I can rescind that anytime before those 30 days are over. Regardless of if it's been re-marketed and even if another individual has said they'll sign the property. They'd just be told they can no longer move in.

This seems too good to be true as there's not much for me to lose by handing in the notice, if anything falls through we can just rescind the notice. I've checked with two different people at the estate agents and both have given the same advice. I can legally rescind the notice, and 100% stay in the property. Not up to the landlord at all, although they could issue a 2 month notice to move out if they weren't happy with it.

I really hope it doesn't come to that and everything should go through fine but if we don't give notice at the right time we'll be over £1k worse off so trying to avoid that too! Is this true?

Burg9

Just to add this has been confirmed by both my current estate agent and the sellers agent so seems true. Was just wondering if anyone had had any experience in this.

AdrianC

Wouldn't it just be easier to have a friendly chat with the landlord, and say "Look, this is the score, I'll keep you posted."...?

theartfullodger

AdrianC said:

Wouldn't it just be easier to have a friendly chat with the landlord, and say "Look, this is the score, I'll keep you posted."...?

Indeed: Issue is, formally (ie in law..) once a tenant has served valid notice to quit but does not leave, landlord has the right to demand double rent.  Not a risk worth running.

Agent is either ignorant of the law (not good..) or a liar (worse..)

Artful: Landlord since 2000

Burg9

Ah I wish it was that easy to speak to the landlord. Sadly it's all via the estate agent and they're not really one for informal chats between tenant and landlord. 

Perhaps this is something specific to the agent then? I've checked with several there and they've all said the same thing. Including another completely different estate agent :O It's not per say "refusal to leave" but more of a rescinding of the notice. If there's much difference between those. 

Comms69

Burg9 said:

Currently a private tenant in a UK property managed via an estate agent. We're working through a house purchase at the moment so trying to juggle handling in our rental notice. I've just been told by my estate agent that I can give my 30 days notice but then I can rescind that anytime before those 30 days are over. Regardless of if it's been re-marketed and even if another individual has said they'll sign the property. They'd just be told they can no longer move in.

This seems too good to be true as there's not much for me to lose by handing in the notice, if anything falls through we can just rescind the notice. I've checked with two different people at the estate agents and both have given the same advice. I can legally rescind the notice, and 100% stay in the property. Not up to the landlord at all, although they could issue a 2 month notice to move out if they weren't happy with it.

I really hope it doesn't come to that and everything should go through fine but if we don't give notice at the right time we'll be over £1k worse off so trying to avoid that too! Is this true?

Legally you cannot rescind a notice. So any such agreement would be purely voluntary. 

and 100% at the discretion of the landlord. the agent is nothing to do with you at all. 

Burg9

Yeah that's what I've found online so was surprised to hear that from the agents... Perhaps since the agent handles this side of things for the landlord they just deal with it without it needing it all to go via the landlord? End of the day the landlord is still getting the rent and payments either way? It would be much easier being able to have a amicable discussion with the landlord directly...

Comms69

Burg9 said:

Yeah that's what I've found online so was surprised to hear that from the agents... Perhaps since the agent handles this side of things for the landlord they just deal with it without it needing it all to go via the landlord? End of the day the landlord is still getting the rent and payments either way? It would be much easier being able to have a amicable discussion with the landlord directly...

Or the agents are dodgy and dont tell the landlord anything at all. I dont know. 

The legal position is how i posted, sorry. 

princeofpounds

Most agents only have a tenuous grasp of letting law. As others have said, it would be quite a risk to issue notice without being confident of departure. 

Normal advice would be to only issue notice once you have exchanged. If there is a gap between exchange and completion then you won't even be overlapping by a full month. Use the time to have a stress-free move.

By the way, it's unlikely your required notice period is actually 30 days. It is probably one month to coincide with a defined rental period. But if the LA/LL is happy to accept surrender of the tenancy on that basis then it's not a problem in practice.

Slithery

Sounds like a load of bol⁣locks to me, but if the agent insists that it's possible then make sure you get this in writing.

Burg9 said:

It would be much easier being able to have a amicable discussion with the landlord directly...

Then do so. If you ask for a copy of the landlords actual address in writing from the agent then they are legally obliged to give it to you.

Burg9

I'm guessing the landlord will generally go off the advice of the letting agent if they're using them though.

The sellers have put in a rather hopeful completion date of 24th July, I don't think we'll quite make that but I'm not expecting it to be much longer if nothing ends up falling through. Our tenancy runs from the 4th of each month. So if I find out in the next week or two that it is in fact going to be 24th and I've not given notice it means I'll be paying the current rent up to 4th September is the problem - quite a bit of wasted £££. There's not likely to be very long between exchange and completion - likely days. 

If it was just 30 days from whenever that would be great but the need to align with the contract date really does us over here. This obviously isn't a problem if we're able to rescind as we'll know much more in the next week or two on the completion date, if it's much further we can just rescind and it's fine, otherwise if it's only a week or so over we can elsewhere in the interim. Or so I thought....