You live in a flat and you have a tenancy agreement which states that you must give three months' notice when you wish to leave. You have paid a deposit of two months' rent. Now a member of your family has a problem and you need to give up your flat and return home as soon as possible. Write a letter to your landlord /landlady. In your letter: - explain your circumstances - tell him/her what you intend to do - ask him/her for special consideration
Sample Response
Dear Mr Milan, I am a tenant of your flat D4apartment D#4 in Birmingham Garden Streetstreet. I am writing to ask a favour from you due to a family emergency and I need to vacate your flat next month - 30th June 2025, to be exact. I signedI have signed an agreement when I moved intowhile moving into your flat which requiresbounds me to notify you three months before vacatingprior to empty the flat. I have always respected the contract and paid my rent on time. During my 11-month stay11 months' stay at your flatfalt, I have never asked you for a favourasked your favour but this time I am hoping for your kind considerationrelying on your kind consideration. My elder brother, who looks after our family business, has been diagnosed with a serious illnessdisease and has been admittedtransferred to a hospital in Manhattan. My family needs me to look after the business and be with them right now. This situationThe circumstance has forced me to give up the training programme that I am pursuing and return home immediately. I have decided to leave England and return to my home country on 2nd June 2025. I, therefore, request you to consider my situation and permit me to vacate your flat on a month's notice. I have already paid a deposit equal to two months' rentpaid two month's rent in advance and would request you to refund one month's rent to mereturn me a month's rent which is £750. I have always known you as a benevolent person and would not have requested your favour otherwise. Yours sincerely, David Sergel
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response’s strongest feature is a clear, persuasive explanation of the family emergency and a courteous request for early release from the tenancy. Its main weakness is precision: the departure and vacation dates conflict, and several grammar and collocation errors weaken otherwise strong formal language; the priority is to reconcile the timeline and proofread verb patterns, possessives, and request constructions.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear, all three bullet points are developed, and the respectful request for special consideration is persuasive.
Resolve the conflicting June departure and vacation dates and explain the requested treatment of the deposit more precisely.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter follows a clear progression from the request through its justification to the proposed arrangement, with effective linking.
Use separate paragraphs for the opening request, family circumstances, and requested financial arrangement to sharpen the structure.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a good range of formal and topic-specific vocabulary, though several collocations and word forms are inaccurate.
Use more natural forms such as “ask you for a favour,” “requires me,” and “refund one month’s rent.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are attempted successfully, but recurring errors in verb patterns, possessives, and complementation reduce accuracy.
Proofread structures following verbs and prepositions, especially “requires me to give notice” and “prior to vacating the flat.”
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You live in a flat and you have a tenancy agreement which states that you must give three months' notice when you wish to leave. You have paid a deposit of two months' rent. Now a member of your family has a problem and you need to give up your flat and return home as soon as possible. Write a letter to your landlord /landlady. In your letter:
- explain your circumstances
- tell him/her what you intend to do
- ask him/her for special consideration
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.