Would there be any legal comeback?

[readyfornumber2and3]

Hi all looking for advice x

We are moving out of our current home into a new one and gave our notice to leave on the 14th of december (30 days notice) I know that you are obliged to give it on a 1st to 31st basis but we are hoping to do a deal.
Our letting agents are being snotty about it and say that we are liable for rent until 6th january as there offices are closed
First question is can they do this?

We paid a bond of £840 and the monthly rent is £560.
If we didnt pay the next installment and left on the 30th november and didnt want the bond back (as obviously this would more than cover the rent) would there be any legal comeback?
The house will be left in perfect condition as we have repainted and will clean from top to bottom before we leave.

We have passed the references for the new property and sign the contracts and get the keys on friday.

if there would be any major legal comeback we wouldnt obviously do it but we really dont want to pay an extra months rent when we wont be here!
The reason we couldnt give our notice on 1st november is that the tenant from the new property was being evicted for not paying rent and we needed to be sure she left the property as she was threatening to squat!

We have a 3yo and 14 week old twins and couldnt run the risk of not having a house to move into.

So would we be in trouble with the law if we just left this property and let them keep the bond?

If we would can you recommend anything we could do to avoid paying the extra months rent?

TIA

You aren't obliged to run to 31st unless your lease specifies you can only give notice at the beginning of the month for the end of that month. It is irrelevant that the office is shut - your lease's terms still hold.

However you cannot use the deposit in lieu as that should be held in a scheme with specifc conditions as to what can be charged against it and is not controlled directly by the landlord. Presumably you are suppose dto pay in advance ? Legally he can't take action against you in that short period, assumign you would pay up eventually, but you could find youself in an argument you could do without.

the deposit scheme thing I think only applies if you have paid the bond after April 2007.

incidentally - if you did move in after 2007 and you discover the bond hasn't been held in a scheme and they refuse to return it you can get it back and some here

Our contract does state that notice period is 1st to 31st

we moved in sept 2007 and we are definately in the deposit scheme.

So would we have to get the deposit back and then pay them out of it?

I wouldnt normally consider doing something like this (have rented for 9 years now) but this letting agents are terrible and I just know they are going to play hard ball!
We dont want to put off signing the house till next month as we seriously dont have any space in this house and its driving me mad but with having new twins we dont want to be parting with an extra month rent when we wont be living here

We are gonna end up having to pay it though arent we?

Ready do you know what kind of deposit scheme your landlord or agent uses? We use an insurance scheme so hold the cash ourselves and take out insurance on it. TBH if any of my tenants left the property a month early in immaculate condition and I was holding a bond in excess of 1 months rent which they said I could keep and signed the unprotect form, I would not care less about them not actually paying the last month's rent and ignoring the technical legal position about not using the deposit to meet the final rental liability.

I am not however sure how the other scheme works but believe in this case that the deposit is held by someone official, not the landlord/letting agent and takes time to be released. I also suspect that in this case the deposit would be released to you and not the landlord. In this case I do not really think it is fair not to pay the final month's rent.