Landlord threatening court action if we leave house before lease is up.

Myself and my house mate signed a lease for one year in July 2009. We are both in receipt of job seekers allowance and rent allowance. Since moving in to the house, we are finding it extremely cold presumably due to bad insulation. We can no longer afford to run the house.
At the end of December 09, we gave one month's notice and arranged alternative accomodation. Our landlord has since threatened court action, saying that we are liable to pay the remainder of the years rent due to the fact we signed the contract.
My house mate and I are due to move out at the end of the month but I don't really know how to handle the situation.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Christine, if you sign a 12 month lease & try to move out beforehand without the consent of the landlord, you are in breach of contract & your landlord does have the right to take action against you. Have you spoken to your landlord about the lack of insulation and has he proposed any action to remedy the issue?

Does the contract you signed no say that you only have to give one months notice that you are planning to move out!

I'd just kiss goodbye to your security deposit, and move on. The landlord could theoretically take action against you for breach of contract, but s/he would be mad to..... The judge would expect the landlord to have "mitigated the losses" of the contract termination (i.e. found a new tenant asap). Also, the judge would take into account your ability to pay etc etc... and you could probably argue a breach of contract on the landlord's side because the heating/insulation in the house wasn't up to scratch. The forfeiture of the deposit would probably be enough to satisfy any judge, as well as the PRTB (who would have to be the landlord's first port of call anyway).

The potential costs for the landlord in pursuing the case (should s/he lose it) mean that only a fool would take legal action against an unemployed tenant over breaking a lease and expect to recoup any money, regardless of whether he or she is entitled to sue.

If you genuinely can't afford to stay there, then I'd just move out as planned and call the landlord's bluff. S/he will give up soon enough.

RIAD_BSC said:

The potential costs for the landlord in pursuing the case (should s/he lose it) mean that only a fool would take legal action against an unemployed tenant over breaking a lease and expect to recoup any money, regardless of whether he or she is entitled to sue.

Click to expand...

This is quite true.

The landlord is only trying to frighten you I am a landlord and I have had tenants that have broken leases numerous times and at the end of the day I'm not going to loose more money chasing them so dont worry about it call his bluff.

Thanks for the advice. Think I'll take the approach you suggested. Thanks again!