I'm in NC and with 45 days to go on my 18th month lease my landlord told me she was putting the home up for sale. We declined the purchase of the home and gave 30 day notice we were moving as soon we could find a home. She is now coming after us for breach of lease and wants 2 months rent. Do we have a case?

You can't give a 30 day notice until you are 30 days from the end of the lease.

What you apparently failed to understand, dwh0124, is that the sale of the property would have been subject to your lease. The lease survives the sale. The fact that the property was sold to a third party doesn't extinguish the rights of either the lessee (yourself) or of the lessor (buyer, who steps into the shoes of the owner).

I'm not clear on the time line here. You have an 18 month lease. With 45 days left the landlord informed you she wanted to sell and gave you the opportunity to purchase. You declined to purchase and then gave notice of your intent to move within 30 days.

So can you fill in the actual dates here:
Date lease ends:
Date informed of sale:
Date gave 30 days notice:

Also did your lease have a requirement about how much notice to give prior to terminating?

As AK said, the sale does not affect your lease, so there was no need to move early. All you needed to do was inform her that you would not renew the lease and would be moving at lease end. By terminating the lease early, you may have opened yourself up for a penalty.