My tenant wants to end the tenancy early. The tenancy does not have a break clause. We are working on reaching a mutual agreement on the terms.
My question is about how I can get this confirmed in writing to make sure that I am legally covered. Is an email confirmation sufficient if emails are not mentioned as a way to serve notice in the tenancy agreement? He is abroad right now and getting something signed may be problematic.
He is also currently a bit all over the place in terms of mental health, and his family is helping him to sort out ending his tenancy. I am talking to them as well as to him. They are in the UK. It is amicable with him and his family but it feels like they are effectively acting as his representatives. Is there anything that I need to consider with regards to that?
I am keen to get it sorted for my sake as well as his and don’t want to create additional complications but also want to do it in a way that does not expose me to a legal liability.
2 Comments
Email is fine where everybody agrees. You can reply confirming receipt and that will be accepting the email.
However, with an offer to surrender it’s fairly irrelevant what you have written down if they don’t actually go and return keys. The reality is that it’s exceptionally difficult to obtain possession based upon a surrender.
But, if you get a written confirmation, they do go and you get the keys, all is good. It is the keys that ultimately matter as that shows there’s no intention to return.
It’s no problem to be speaking with family about this as long as all the instructions are ultimately from the tenant. Just like a landlord can employ an agent, so can a tenant and the family are just being an agent for this.
Thank you. Annoyingly he changed his mind now. Such a hassle!