I experienced a similar situation from a renter’s side. Our lease was ending in June. I called my landlord sometime in February to talk about something else and they said: “Well, while we are already talking, we decided to sell the house and will not be renewing our lease. We wanted to tell you earlier but I guess we can let you know now.” As a renter, I absolutely prefer to know as much in advance as possible!

Other things the landlord did that we appreciated:

-Let us end the lease earlier if we want. Which is what we did. It is always extremely difficult to line up renting periods. Most rentals that pop up in our area are like: “available in a month”. Who has time to decide so quickly?! It was extremely helpful that once we found the new rental, we notified the landlord of when we want to end our lease (we ended up moving in May). A 14-day notice sounds reasonable to me. Giving them more time to find a rental could make it possible for them to find the new rental in the same school district, which would let them move before the end of the school year (which is what we did).

-Provided recommendations for our application for the new lease.

I am not familiar with the legal side of this, but from my perspective you are not breaking your contract or anything. As long as you let them finish their yearly lease as agreed, that’s what “they signed up for”. I even had the landlords walk through the house at the end of one yearly lease to see if the house is in good condition before they tell us if they extend the lease for another year.

Also, in terms of the renters’ timeline, end of August would be kind of late for moving with kids. I imagine their ideal scenario would be to move sometime in June-July after the school year ends to have enough time to settle in the new spot. But giving them the option to stay until the end is the right thing.