Hi, I know this is in property/DIY but my phone doesn't let me choose any other topic. I will ask that this gets moved to Legal.
I am in an AST ending September. If I want to give notice I need to do that in July. All fine, all understood.
There is a clause in my tenancy that says I can't leave the property empty for more than 28 days.
We are buying a house and surprisingly the searches have all come back after 3 working days, having originally been told they are expecting them back at the end of July.
We have asked the landlord to allow us to break our lease and continue paying rent, CT and utilities until they find a new tenant and also to cover the cost of the new tenancy agreement for the letting agent. Landlord has said no, fair enough, that's their right. But also stated they expect us to stay in the property until September because of the 28 day clause in our tenancy agreement.
We don't want to lose this house purchase, we are now looking at completing early July. We have absolutely no issue paying everything up to the end of September but we would want to move into our new house, therefore leaving the property vacant.
Can we continue to pay our rent, CT and utilities but move out before the tenancy agreement is up? Is there a legal basis for the clause about not letting the property be empty? Will we have repercussions?
Thank you.