My partner and I have lived in a self-contained flat since July 2009. Our landlady, while pleasant and generally cooperative, has been somewhat unreliable - she has often stated she will do things and not carried them out (not replaced a lock on our window, not fixed the grill on our window, not given us the code to the alarm system and not given the keys to our other windows, among other things), leaving us with several issues in the property we rent. However, they are all pretty minor things, so we've let them slide, and due to liking the property and its location, we agreed in January 2010 to extend our contract for an extra year (from July 2010 to July 2011).
However, recently we've had several attempted break ins. Finally, early last Wednesday morning, 5 armed men managed to smash our front door in whilst we were inside, threatened to shoot us (as well as stab us- they were armed with screwdrivers) and basically robbed us.
While the stuff they took is replaceable, we have been left pretty much terrified. We've not been able to sleep, we've been afraid to leave the house but afraid to be in it as well. We're struggling to cope with it and so we're looking to move out. However, we've committed to an extra year, which is due to begin on July 1st. We really can't stay, but I don't see how we can back out of a contract 2 weeks before it's due to begin. What options are there available to us in this situation?
Additional Details
We agreed to another year because as far as we knew, it wasn't a dangerous property. The landlady herself said that she had never had a break in at the flat before, and the previous tenants had no issue with it either. The attempted break ins and actual break in have all happened in the space of a two week period, after almost a year of having no problems of this nature whatsoever.