With regard to the cancellation regulations it is important to bear in mind where and when the contract is entered into, i.e. if it is an 'on premises contract' this is not applicable, and there is no right to cancel, but it is if it is 'off premises' (i.e. signed at the property with you there and then) it does apply.
However in your circumstance, we simply emailed it over for your consideration, the ARLA guidelines do not cover this circumstance specifically, but the intention of the regulation is to protect customers from pressure sales, which your circumstance was not, that is why we have advised of the withdrawal fee as was cleared detailed in our agreement. The fee covered our initial costs, as we had commenced marketing in line with your original wishes ASAP on the 2nd of December, in order to have a tenant occupying the property before Christmas and in the 4 days before you withdrew the property we had completed over 400 transactions on the property exposing it to hundreds of potential tenants and texted the details to tens of prospective tenants and had arranged 8 viewings, we had instructed a board, checked your EPC status, and commenced marketing on Rightmove and Zoopla.
That is why we advise of a cancellation charge, just to cover our costs in case a landlord does change their mind after we have started all this work, as your agreement detailed. You advised you would be withdrawing it to complete works and then put it up for sale and we confirmed there would be no charge if it was marketed for sale with us.
We only emailed you once regarding this charge in response to your withdrawal email, and then did not contact you or hear from you again over the next few months and thought you were undertaking the works. We only contacted you again a couple of weeks ago and only by one single email once we noticed that you had put it up for sale, but not with ourselves. I wouldn't describe these couple of emails hounding and as you know further to your reply email, I have responded explaining the above and offered to resolve this situation. Kind Regards