Our tenant signed an 18 month lease understanding that at some point we would be putting the house on the market. She claims we had a verbal agreement that the house would not go on the market until October, but there is no language in the lease to indicate this. We decided to list the house this past December, although we do not not plan to consider any offers seriously for another 12 months.

At the end of January tenant called saying she was very late paying her rent this month (obviously) and should have informed us earlier. We sent her an email saying we were willing to work with her and could she make weekly or byweekly payments? She responded she would be caught up on the rent by the end of March.

Instead she gave us 30 days notice on February 5th. She has not paid rent for January or February and is still living in the house. What she is claiming is that she was "advised" not to pay the rent on our property and instead is putting together all the documents necessary to counterclaim that we owe her moving expenses and lost wages because she felt forced to move because we had the house on the market, even though she has a lease that is binding until May 31st.

Does she have the right to break her lease and withhold rent because we put the house on the market and showed it once? We have it in writing repeatedly assuring her that we were not currently seriously considering offers and that she would certainly be able to stay until the end of her lease.