Cancelling a Rental Agreement: What Are Your Rights?

Questioner

I signed a rental contract for a room a week and a half ago. I would like to cancel it now. The landlord is being difficult now. But I have a two-week statutory cooling-off period, don't I? I would like to know if I am correct.

Lawyer

Dear questioner, Unlike signing a purchase agreement for a home, there is no cooling-off period for signing a rental agreement for a home. I will explain this further. At the moment you sign a lease agreement, you cannot simply withdraw from it. Only if there is a special circumstance such as error or fraud, you cannot be held to the agreement. It is going quite far to state that there is a mistake in your case. Then you as a tenant would have to state that you would not have signed the lease if you had known that a difficult neighbor would live next door. This means that there must be an obligation for the landlord to report that a difficult neighbor lives next door. But this is not the case. If there is no minimum term, you can of course cancel the rental agreement as soon as possible, taking into account the notice period. Should you require further clarification, I would be pleased to hear from you in this regard.