Rental agreement and verbal agreements

Questioner

I had the intention to sign a rental agreement. The contract had already been drawn up and an appointment had been made to sign it. Due to financial setbacks, I cannot afford it at the moment. I have informed the landlord about this. Now he states that there is nothing to cancel because there is a verbal agreement and that he has suffered damage. The agreement required that a person would act as guarantor. This deed of guarantor has not been signed. To what extent is the agreement legally valid and am I obliged to compensate for the damage suffered, or to comply with the contract (assuming that the landlord demands this). I assume that there can be no question of damage suffered if the contract has to be complied with.

Lawyer

Dear questioner, Oral agreements are also legally valid. The question is in which phase are the parties at this moment, pre-contractual or contractual? The absence of a signature from the tenant and the fact that a deposit still had to be found tends towards the situation of a preliminary phase, so if I were you I would initially stick to the position that there was no agreement yet, unless there is additional counter-evidence in the form of e-mail(s) because these can be used in a procedure. The damages claimed and their legal validity depend on the type of lease, commercial or residential and the duration and/or whether the vacancy law etc. has been declared applicable and last but not least what the conditions have to say about this subject.

Lawyer

In itself it is correct that an oral agreement is also legally valid, but here a SUBJECT condition seems to apply: IF a guarantee is given then... Furthermore, the question is whether the various provisions in the lease agreement have already been discussed. If you did not agree with them, I think that there was insufficient agreement to believe that there was already an agreement. If the document was approved in advance, then yes. I would deny the verbal agreement and also rely on the failure to provide a guarantee.