Residency issues

So, the developments with the house… (by which I mean situational developments, not structural developments - we’re not looking to renovate the place, just live in it)
For a start, it absolutely flattens me to think that we’ve been here nearly two years. Can you believe that? I’ve always heard it said that years fly by quicker as you get older and I’ve always laughed it off as clichéd nonsense, but I’m slowly beginning to accept it as truth. Maybe spending a whole year entombed in plans for a wedding skews your perception of time somewhat.
Anyways, I digress……
If you remember, we originally signed an agreement to house-sit here for two years, as that was the time the Bannermans (the actual owners of our current abode) wanted to spend in Australia before finally deciding whether to stay out there permanently. Over the course of the past 18 months both they and we have realised that the Housesitting Agency are as useful as a steel tampon, and so we’ve started communicating more directly. The state of play is that they have no plans to return just yet, but they’re still reluctant to close the lid on their Suffolk life completely. So they asked if we would be interested in staying on longer, but as tenants of THEM rather than as employees of the Agency. Well after a few bits of to-ing and fro-ing and several hours on Skype, we all reached an agreement. (Most of which I won’t bore you with here!)
The bottom lines are - we stay here, and pay them £500 a month basic rent; we take on the payment of all the bills; they will make a final decision on this house within two years of 1st July 2016; we still get first refusal if they decide to sell; if they do go ahead and sell, the total amount we have payed them in rent will be deducted from the final price of the house; and here’s my favourite bit of all - we have already agreed what that ‘final price’ will be!! It’s basically the valuation of the house as of today, or the valuation of the house when they decide to sell MINUS £10,000, whichever amount is higher. In the meantime, we get to keep most of the furniture that hasn’t already been shipped Down Under, and it’s now entirely up to us what we do with the place as far as decorating and improvements go! It’s taken a while to sort it all out, and has been pricey on the ’legal advice’ front, but it’s all now being put in writing and everyone involved seems very, very happy.
There is just one small snag:
Both the Bannermans, and Philippa and I, have contracts with the infernal Housesitting Agency. They are useless, but they do have the capacity to make things difficult for us all, should they choose to. As we’re employees of the agency, we have to see out the length of our agreed sit, and then resign from them. If we don’t do it that way they can turf us out whenever they like and send us somewhere else.
According to the Bannermans contract with the agency, and indeed ours, we are not supposed to enter into any kind of agreement that bypasses the agency (that put us in contact in the first place) for at least six months after we have left them. So in theory, as things stand, we might have to vacate the premises on 30th June and find somewhere else to live until the end of the year. This all sounds ludicrous to me, but is apparently ‘a definite possibility‘, so the Bannermans have a legal representative currently looking into it to try and find a resolution that sees us simply staying here, without any other kind of palaver that sees us move out, only to move back in again later.
It’s all got very confusing, so I’m retreating to my drumming zone in the garage as much as possible and hoping that Philippa will sort it all out in my absence.

RC 19-4-16