Landlord Contract Dispute

[GHeyes]

I signed for a house last year and appart from the landlord being completely usless it was a good year. At the end of this year I contacted the landlord to ask if Icould extend my one year contract to two and they said that would be fine, all I had to do we send them a letter confirming that I want to extented the contract to two years.

The next day I printed something out saying something like "I agree to extend our contract for this residence untill the 31st June 2007" etc etc, signed and dated it.

I am now moving to Australia ans so really dont want this house and cant find anyone to take up my contract. Does the peice of paper I gave to the landlords constitue as a legally binding contract? Will it be worth my while to try to just move out? I have no issues about loosing my bond, I just cant afford to pay rent for somewhere I dont live.

Cheers for your help,
Graeme

[blacksheep1979]

There should be somewhere in your contract about notice period - the standard is one month.

It appears that you have agreed to enter into a further contract both have indicated an intention to be legally bound by it...your only exit is through a break cluase, or with consent. Otherwise, you do may owe the landlord for the remaining term...

[m3shl]

It has varied by in my experience but you can dispute all angles of this if necessary.

If you entered into AST for a fixed term which has now ended and have written agreeing to stay but no new AST has been signed you can probably break as it may be seen as a Stat Periodic tenancy and you just need to give one rental periods notice.

Even if you have entered into a new AST with a fixed term you can actually challenge this and win. The courts favour the tenant who wish to break so long as it is the same tenant in the same property.

Best advice I can give though to keep it "clean" and not drag it through the courts would be to send your "notice in writing" anyway and ask the landlord to remarket to find suitable replacements. You could offer to pay a 2mth notice period or until replacement tenants are found (whichever comes first).

Good luck

I dont see what angles there are for dispute...unless you can name some...
There is no obligation on the landlord to remarket. Its now a process of careful negotiation.....you may consider assignment/ subletting, asking the landlord to release you from it once a new tenant is found (provided that you pay the advertising costs or a large contribution towards them). Furthermore, the tenancy agreement does not have to be in writing for it to be binding...the dispute here, if you follow to approach suggested above, is whether a new term has been fixed. The letter is evidence of that agreement.