I have unfortunately had to cancel my tenancy agreement 2 months early as I've lost my job and am not a British citizen (therefore I cannot legally stay in the country). I spoke to the letting agency responsible for the property I'm living in in hopes that if I was as accommodating as possible in finding a new tenant that I would be allowed out of my contract. The agent was able to find a new tenant immediately without even advertising the flat and asked ME to do the showing, which I willingly did. The couple who viewed the flat loved it and subsequently applied for it, I've agreed to move out a week earlier than I planned just to make everyone happy. Now the agency says that I owe them 300 pounds as a "re-letting fee". Now I certainly agree that they would be within their rights to charge me a fee, but 50% of my rent seems unreasonable considering they didn't actually do ANY work to re let the flat. Now my contract doesn't state ANYTHING about a re-letting fee, in fact it only states what they can withhold from my deposit; the standard things like damage, rent arrears, and it says "The reasonable costs incurred in compensating the Landlord for, or for rectifying or remedying any major breach by the Tenant of the Tenant's obligations under the tenancy agreement, including those relating to the cleaning of the Property, its fixtures and fittings." So, my breach meant that the landlord could have gone without a tenant, but this is not the case as the new tenant will pick up paying rent from where I finish off, the problem is the agency wants 300 pounds for the very very small effort they made to get the new tenant. Now the problem is that they either want to charge me or the landlord (the landlord obviously doesn't want to pay this fee either) but if I don't pay it I think he will be stuck with it and therefore could have reason to take it out of my deposit. I have tried to reason with the agency, explaining the fact that I've lost my job and I cannot afford this arbitrary amount of 300 pounds. I even offered to pay them half of that if they could just be reasonable and take into account how easy it was to find a new tenant! So, in summary, do I have to pay this re-letting fee even though the specific amount of 300 pounds was never in my contract, I don't feel that it's "reasonable" given my circumstances and the amount of work that was required to find a new tenant. AND, if I choose not to pay can they legally take it from my deposit if they turn around and try to charge the landlord for it? Thanks for your help