You do not have to pay him anything. He is trying to be a typical greedy LL. I would suggest calling or visiting the rent committee and seeking advice on this. You do not want to leave the country without getting the cheque cancelled or returned as you never know what can happen in the future.
You should not have to pay anything to get the cheque returned . We also broke our lease early and paid 2 month penalty as well but were not charged any money for getting our final cheque back.(which we shredded after recieving)
My husband has just been made redundant so we will be moving back to the UK next month. We have given notice to our landlord to terminate our tenancy contract early, the quarterly rent cheque has cleared today to cover the next months rent and 2 months penalty for breaking the contract early. The landlord is now saying he wants to charge us AED500 to return the final rent cheque that is due in November. The bank account will be closed so do we really need to pay to have our cheque returned???? I know the laws to do with cheques have been relaxed recently so is it so important to get the final cheque back?
TIA