As a landlord would you rather ...

[HumourReplacementTherapy]

Have your tenant move out into their newly purchased property, leave the house empty and keep the keys until the new tenant moves in.
Or
Refund approximately 3 months rent to allow a new tennant to move in earlier than agreed (see below)

Background facts.
Rent has been paid in full in advance for 6 months (up to end of September)
It's a 12 month contract with agreement we can leave the tenancy at 6 months (September) if we pay the agents Re letting fee (but are responsible for rent until a new tenant is found)

We will complete on our purchase at the end of June and want to move into our new home then. It's not far away so if needed we can keep coming back to check on it etc but I know if it were me, I'd sooner have a new tenant in. It is very expensive. The landlord was a bit of an arse hence us paying 6 month's upfront.

Thought welcome. I hope I've explained it!

I’d be happy with either - can be tricky finding new tenants over the summer, particularly August, so getting new tenants in earlier might work for them. There are costs associated with a change in tenancy though, so they may not be budgeting for those until September - can’t think of any other reason they wouldn’t be happy with new tenants earlier.

New tenant in. Then they can start covering all utility bills and looking after the place.

I imagine your landlord will go for option C, agree to let you to vacate in June and start marketing the property now but expect you to pay a reletting fee and the rent/council tax/utility standing charges until the property is let, which might take several months. That would be my preferred option too. I wouldn't want to commit to allowing you to end the contract early until I had new tenants in place and I would expect you to cover any losses due to ending the contract early.

Or he might try to go for the CF option D, expect you to pay rent until September but take advantage of the fact that you aren't actually living there and renovate the property.

If the landlord is an ass he may be entitled to both. There is likely a clause in your agreement that says you can't leave the property empty for more than x days. Which means if you move out he may be entitled to the property back AND the rent money for the full 6 months (though I would imagine making that happen given its almost impossible to evict people would be very difficult in reality).

You are also assuming that a new tenant will be found very quickly... is that realistic?

I'm a landlord, I would refund my tenants any money I didn't lose, i.e. I would expect the costs of finding a new tenant to come out of your pocket not mine (they rack up) but if a new tenant was found I would refund you all the rent that was now covered by a new tenant.

Thanks for your replies. We've already agreed that if we leave at 6 months we will pay the Re letting fee.
I just want them to give us some £££ back!
(We'll be leaving after 3 months and have paid for 6)
I don't think there will be a problem Re letting it. When we were looking this was the only property on the rental market with 3 beds and a garden. We only got it as we were paying upfront.
I guess we'll find out! Once we have exchanged on our purchase I'll ask the question.
Good to know you'd go for it.

I'd not refund your money until new tenants were found, and even then I don't think he has to. Just as he couldn't get you out before six months even of he wanted to, the caveat is you are obliged to pay that initial six months. The fact you've already paid it means he doesn't have to chase you for it.

If he was so persistent on you paying 6 months rent up front, I think it might be unlikely he’ll refund you anything. There will be a reason you had to pay so much in advance and it could be for him to not have the stress of finding new renters after such a short amount of time. You won’t know until you ask him though.

I doubt you'll get any money back.

I agree it's unlikely, but it's either that or he'll have an empty property which we still have the keys for until the 6 months is up.
Personally if it were me, I'd sooner have the keys back and a new tenant in earlier rather than an empty property until September. But, like you say I won't know until I ask!
I know we don't have any right to any money back
The reason we had to pay so much in Advance @Tinkywinkydinkydoo is purely because the rental market is insane ( high demand, no supply as a knock on from the housing market here)
It was a sweetener in desperate times.