Thanks for everybody's advice and opinions. The letting agent came round on Monday and appears to be a pretty fair guy. He has contacted the landlord to request compensation for our inconvenience (he confirmed this is normally 1 weeks rent). If he is fair and compensates us appropriately I will do my upmost to make the place look as presentable as possible, if not I will not be making much effort at all. I wouldn't sabotage his sale though, tempting as it might be ! We are fair people, just hoping the landlord turns out to be the same. I asked the agent if he would ask the landlord if he would let us vacate the property by the auction on 28 April but why on earth would he agree to that and lose 3 months rent and have to sell the property empty. Much better for him to get his rent, use our furniture and plants in the garden to get some great photos for the sales schedule. Think it's time to move on from this house anyway, between the noise from the building site over the road, the neighbour who let's his yappy dog out ever morning at 7am (including Sunday's) and being burgled 6 weeks ago, someone somewhere is telling us it's time to go !