Breaking a lease?
 

I have just found a condo I really like. My family is coming this Saturday to see it. And if it passes their inspection, I may put a contract on it. It will be the first property I purchase.

However, if that is the case, I would have to break the lease on my apartment. I renewed it for a year back in June. So I would break it in August- having lived in it just 2 months of the lease. I did not know how long it would take me to find the right condo. I had looked at 5 complexes before this one since I renewed my lease. The month by month option was over $100 more expensive per month.

Has anyone here broken a lease before? Will it go on my record of any kind? Will I really have to pay thousands of dollars? My brother left 2 months before his lease was up- but he just paid the rent because it was cheaper that way. However, there is a difference between 2 months of rent and 9 months of rent.

Subleasing is not an option at all- I don't know anyone who wants it, and it's not allowed by my complex.

Any advice regarding this?

First thing to do is read your lease and see what it says.

You may not want to break your lease...try subleasing it...that way it doesn't cause an effect on your credit record or rental history.

Paging AXiD670, where are you D??

She just went through this recently. Check her thread at the bottom of the page for general advice.

I'll get a copy of my lease and read it. I fear the worst- having to pay rent till they find someone else.

Subleasing is not an option at all. Not only do I not know anyone who could be interested. It is not allowed under any circumstances in the lease. That much I do remember.

EDIT

Found a copy of the old lease of when I first moved- dunno how much it has changed. It says it can be terminated after 6 months of living here. I have lived here for over 3 years now, so I do not know if that affects this. It says it has to be accompanied by one month rent as well as prepayment of the rent ofr the 50 day notice period. There is a bunch of other stuff...but if it is just 3 months rent, that I can deal with. It also mentions something about concessions- not sure if that means the discounts, or if I rented any other things they may have (I haven't).

I will check with them next Saturday if I do put a contract. Wish me luck.

I would look into this before you draw up a contract on the condo you're interested in purchasing. If your current lease requires you to pay for another three months, perhaps you can indicate that your purchase will not close until your last month (well, in this case, your third month) at your current place. That way, you'll have time to move and you won't be paying two separate home payments.

I didn't know there were states where landlords could prohibit subleasing entirely -- the fact that it's in a lease doesn't mean it's enforceable. You might want to do a search for organizations that provide information on landlord/tenant law; such organizations often provide information that might be helpful to tenants.

For what it's worth, the Florida landlord/tenant statute is here. I'd probably read it and then decide what to do. It looks like under this provision, you could be on the hook for all of the rent due for the remainder of your lease. Of course this is not legal advice, blah blah blah.

Just do what Valk said, and then sue if something goes wrong. Its the American way.

Did you sign a renewal lease? I'm guessing that you didn't sign a 3-year lease. The problem is that each renewal lease will probably be treated as a brand new lease. Although you have lived in your apartment for 3 years, you have been under your new lease for 3 months so the whole breaking the lease thing after 6 months of being in your apartment might not apply. Talk to your apartment complex. If they're nice, they might be willing to work with you.

What She said.

If the complex is easy to rent and You have been good tenents they may give you a break.

If not, there will or maybe an escape clause that You will have to pay XX amount to get out of it!

Be nice to local Mgt.:D

Subleasing is not allowed at alot of places down here, but everyone does it. I would think it would be pretty hard to catch someone subleasing an apartment, as I have had a significant amount of friends that have done it. I broke one of my leases though so that I could move into a house and it was a 975$ charge including that month's rent, so it came out to around 1600$

Concessions are deals you get from the apartment complex when you sign your lease like - one month of free rent with a 12 month lease. So if when you resigned your lease, you got half a month of free rent, you'll have to pay that back in addition to everything else.

I"m in this situation right now. I got a great job and I have to move to Orlando in August, but my lease isn't up until September. Luckily the penalty for breaking my lease is only a month's rent, so I decided to just pay it without breaking my lease, since I would have to fork it over either way.

I recently broke my lease after living there for 6 months. The deal was that I had to pay 2 months rent to get out of the lease & they even let me put it on a payment plan & break it up over several months.

I've never had a problem breaking a lease, and I've always gotten my security deposit back.

Nope, no 3-year lease. Hopefully they won't treat each renewed lease as a brand new thing. And what if I had gotten ill or my family needed me to move back home due to illness of one of them after 3 or so months of having just moved here?

No month of free rent this year. That was last year's lease. But this renewed one included absolutely no freebies or bonuses like that.

The complex always has people waiting at the office hoping to be shown an apartment. It is near a major university (USF)- and although fall term will start soon, I came in a March to get an apartment to move in during July in order to start classes in August for the fall term. So there may be people searching early for an apartment to start school in the spring term.

Hopefully the escape clause will not be more than 2 months rent or the sort (which is still 1200 dollars- owch). And I will be ultra super duper nice to them. But I happened to find this condo now. I cannot pay mortgage AND rent simultaneously simply because the apartment complex is following things to the letter rather than being flexible. And if they rent it to some new tenant, they may be able to charge them even more anyway.

Well, my family came today.

They liked the condo I talked about. We saw two other complexes, but they did not like them as much.

We did not make the reservation because my mother wants to talk to a friend of hers who is an expert on this.

I hope they do not sell the one I want. They have 4 left of that kind- but the other 3 are not in as good a location as the one I want the most.

My family says that if it is meant to be, it will be mine. However, I am more of a "you control your own destiny" person.

I'm pretty sure that they can't hold you responsible for the term of the lease. Especially since they likely show and rent apartments quite a bit. There's a duty to mitigate the damages there, and I think you're covered there. There may be other lease provisions which might come back and get you depending on your local laws. No one from G.C. can really give you an adequate answer on this one without 1) actually reading the lease, and 2) knowing the local landlord-tenant laws.

You also might consider developing an allergy to the carpet.

Unfortunately, under FL law, this does not seem to be the case, as indicated by my link above:

83.595 Choice of remedies upon breach by tenant.--

(1) If the tenant breaches the lease for the dwelling unit and the landlord has obtained a writ of possession, or the tenant has surrendered possession of the dwelling unit to the landlord, or the tenant has abandoned the dwelling unit, the landlord may:

(a) Treat the lease as terminated and retake possession for his or her own account, thereby terminating any further liability of the tenant; or

(b) Retake possession of the dwelling unit for the account of the tenant, holding the tenant liable for the difference between rental stipulated to be paid under the lease agreement and what, in good faith, the landlord is able to recover from a reletting; or

(c) Stand by and do nothing, holding the lessee liable for the rent as it comes due.

(2) If the landlord retakes possession of the dwelling unit for the account of the tenant, the landlord has a duty to exercise good faith in attempting to relet the premises....

Thus, if the landlord stands by and does nothing, there is no statutory duty to mitigate damages.

...good faith in attempting to relet the premises...

-- that's all the duty to mitigate means, right? I'd assume that means that if there's a waiting list to get in, that she'd be off the hook.

I had a terrible prof for property. A little too obsessed with future interests. His reviews on myspace have been telling me that I'll be learning about Property for the first time on the Barbri, so this ain't exactly my best subject.

Yes, but that's only the case if the landlord retakes possession of the unit. It sounds like (1)(c) provides that the landlord can decline to retake possession and do nothing, leaving the tenant on the hook for rent. If there IS a waiting list, of course the landlord would be an idiot to NOT rent the apartment to somebody else. I'd bet that there is no waiting list, though.

I had a great property professor. He'd always talk about property interests as if they were a "bundle of sticks." It was cute.

I always said my property prof was a few sticks short of a bundle...

(insert laugh track here)

Things did not work out.

I will have to wait a couple more years in order to afford this.

Thanks for your advice anyway.

Awww...I'm sorry that you ended up disappointed. Your first purchase can be a frustrating process. ((hugs))