Breaking an Apartment or Landlord Lease
Posted: Friday, July 21, 2006
by John Hopkins
http://bankerpros.com
I teach people on how to stop renting and own their own home. At our seminars each month I am asked a commen question,
"How do you break a lease?"
There are actually several answers to this question. To start, you should carefully review the lease document to understand the entire term of lease and any clause for termination. This will help see if there are acceptable terms to agree upon and simplify the matter. If not, here are some options to those who really need to break their lease for legitimate or personal reasons. Please understand that due to the potential exposure to lawsuits, judgments and other litigation, some of these options should only be used in dire circumstances. I also recommend consulting with a local attorney before taking any further action.
Q: How do you break a lease which has just been signed within the last few months?
A: See if there is a reletting fee (typically 85% of one months rent) and offer to pay this fee and forfeit your deposit and state you will leave the place very clean and ready to rent. Always ask for a final walk-through and have the landlord agree in writing to the terms of the termination in writing.
Q: How do you break a lease when the landlord wants to be paid in full for the entire term?
A: This is tricky and the landlord holds all the cards if they have a executed lease. A signed lease will prevail in court if the landlord sues you and 90% of all landlords will take you to court to receive the judgment against you. They will usually win even if you do show up to plead your case if you do not take action ahead of time. This is a money-generating racket to landlords and apartment companies. You must present a case in court and that requires advance preparation. If done correctly, you will probably not ever get to court for the landlord usually will not initiate a case they can not slam-dunk win. Attorneys inform me that you can break a legitimate lease for several reasons such as safety concerns, failure to repair major items, or in some cases, job relocation.
Q: How do you break a lease over personal safety concerns?
A: This is a vague area to enforce because it is subjective in its interpretation. What is considered a safe environment to one individual may not be considered safe to another. By example: I had a client, Tom, who lived in an apartment building which was very nice and he had no initial problems. He eventually had his girlfriend Susan move-in with him and added to the lease. (Very Important) After about two months, she complained about the significant amount of men which loitered around the parking lot and near the laundry room on the weekends. What did not bother Tom was a cause for alarm for her. Tom put a letter in writing about this to the management which typically does nothing other than to say they will investigate. After 30 days, Tom gave the management company another letter stating he was giving notice to terminate for they had failed to correct the problem. The management said they would sue, which they did. Tom showed up in court with a copy of the letter and statement by his girlfriend along with a police report of incidences at the apartments in the last 24 months. Tom prevailed in court for the Judge stated that if Susan was in fear of her safety, she was not required to stay at the apartment complex. I have seen the “fear of personal safety" cause used regarding personal property, children, spouses, and other relatives and friends. I have seen interpretation be expanded to parking lot safety, lack of security on-site, police calls to area, inadequate lighting issues, new undesirable tenant in general facinity issues, loitering, distance from laundry mat or mail center, visitors/guests of other tenants, proximity to/from undesirable new businesses such as liquor store or nightclub, new construction site proximity, etc… The main thing to consider here is the interpretation of what you feel is a legitimate safety concern to yourself, a family member, or personal property. Being this is a subjective area of concern, the apartment manager or landlord cannot guarantee your safety and security so they will not do so for the liability issue. Regardless of what they do, you may still feel at risk and therefore have the right to insure your own personal safety by terminating the lease agreement. If you give them written notice (certified mail), and follow the procedure for their “right of cure" and then send them notice again (certified mail), then you have a strong case to terminate the lease and prevent further actions to be administered. Chances are they will not purse legal action for they know you have done the homework to prevail in court should they attempt to bring suit.
Q. How do you break a lease over neglected repairs or lack of maintenance?
A. This can also be subjective for the repairs would normally need to be related to either safety or “Quality of Life." An example of safety repairs could be the security gate is inoperable or your entry door does not close properly and lock, the exterior lights are broken of inadequate, the parking lot is not well-lit, the alarm does not work, the pool gate does not have locking mechanism and you have small children. Examples of “Quality of Life" maintenance may be the water does not work properly, AC/Heat does not work correctly, insect infestation, water/sewer does not drain properly, mice/rodent issues, odor issues, toxic fumes, or appliances do not function properly. Again, any of these issues would need to be clearly defined in a letter to the landlord and time of cure given with an immediate follow-up letter of your intention to terminate the lease. This is riskier to employ since the landlord may fix the problem as agreed and you have lost your right to terminate for that particular cause. Remember, if you notify the landlord of an issue which they resolve then you no longer have the right to terminate the lease for that cause.
Q. How do you break a lease for “Quality of Life" and “Peace and Enjoyment" issues?
A. First, you need to understand this is also a subjective area. What is considered a right for peace and enjoyment depends on the tenant. If you were a young single man who stayed up late, playing music and partying with friends in your apartment till 2am, you might not mind the guy who played loud rock music across the hall. In fact, you might invite him over to join your party. However if the person living downstairs is a middle-aged accountant with wife and two small children, he might not like the noise and have a right to ask that it be monitored and eliminated at unreasonable hours such as after 8pm. Again this is subjective so the ability for an apartment manager of landlord to enforce such control is limited and this stacks in your favor if you wish to terminate for this reason. I have found that landlords have very little control over their neighbors so this is a fairly easy fight to win if you have an obnoxious neighbor already.
Q. How do you break a lease for other reasons?
A. I am also asked about miscellaneous reasons to break a lease such as dog barking, noisy cars, laundry mat does not work, pool too crowded, sex offender moved into area, etc….
The fact is that most of the reasons to break a lease can be usually be categorized in one of the aforementioned questions and pursued in the same manner. The most important thing to remember is to give proper and adequate notice to the landlord and provide them time to cure (fix) the problem. After such time, they must be notified of your intentions to vacate. Ask them to meet you to review the facilities and inspect the property.
Other Do’s and Don’ts:
Put everything in writing and send via certified mail. Do not hand-deliver, even if you live next door to the management office. Keep all paperwork and letters in a safe place for up to 3 years.
Keep all correspondence and communication professional and unemotional. Do not use foul language or make threats. You must appear reasonable and sane. Pretend the letter will be read aloud in front of your grandmother. The reason for this is that if the letter makes it to court, it should reflect that you are a reasonable, mature person making a reasonable request.
Get police reports. Almost every police department can provide a printout of the 911 calls and visits to a neighborhood or apartment community. This is an invaluable document to present to the landlord or court. Get a copy of the police record if you are vandalized or you are aware of vandalism in the immediate vicinity.
Take photos. Take photos of the place before you move in. Take photos of neglected maintenance, broken items, anything which helps prove your case. Take exit photos of the premises to regain your deposit and protect your rights to reclaim the deposit.
Clean the refrigerator and sweep the garage. I have heard of excessive charges for $150 against renter’s deposits to do either of these things. Take photos.
Forward your mail immediately so you can get all correspondence from the landlord or the court, should they proceed with a legal claim. Give your new residence info to the landlord if they need to contact you. Most judgments against tenants are default judgments, meaning the tenant did not even show up to court. Why did they not show up? Because the landlord only lists the last known residence which is where you vacated. The court document sent to that residence never reaches you and they just show up at court to collect a judgment, because you were not even notified.
Never do the following:
Move out in the middle of the night without notice.
Move out without notice
Make threats to anyone.
Do anything without putting it in writing and sending it certified mail.
Take anything which does not belong to you.
Damage anything intentionally.
Leave the premises as anything other than how you moved in.
Vacate without attempting to schedule an inspection of the property.
Vacate without taking plenty of photos of the property as you left it.
Vacate without forwarding your mail and leaving your new address with the landlord.
© 2005 Rentbusters. All rights reserved.
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More commentsMy situation is that my partner and I moved into this apartment February of this year. My car has been broken into twice, and hers once which was last weekend. We have notified the leasing office of this and pretty they said their is nothing they can do and that we cannot break our lease. The officer that came and did the report for the third time advised us to move because of inadequate security such as lighting etc and that it is not a safe area to live in. Over the weekend we counted 9 cars that had been broken into just by looking at their locks, and the police officer advised me that they have arrested at least 15 individuals already. What can I do to get out of this lease? We found a house that we can move into 11-7-08 and would like to do so because of safety reasons.
My question is this, I signed an 8 month lease from the beginning of Nov, thing is I live with my landlord, she has a room downstairs and I have the upstairs, needless to say she is quite difficult to live with. I made a decision to move here from another country and now am planning to go back next month because I miss my family too much. If i give her notice at the end of this month (Dec) and move out at the end of January but let her keep my security deposit (one month) is that sufficient? What are the chances she will sue due to the fact that I have A. left the country and B. there is only 4 months left to the contract? I am in the state of Florida and have read alot of articles and forums and some say landlords will probably receive summary judgment if we do not show up to court and others say most landlords will not bother going to small claims court, a bit confused as to what I should do, do not want to come back here and I have a problem with my credit (she does not have my SSN) I will of course give notice in writing of intention to break the lease early.
The article is really helpful but my problem is quiet different. We have two issues.1) When we rented the appartment we knew that appartment has lots of roahces in it. We made a walkin list and mentioned about the roaches problem in it. Owner said that he will pay for all treatments untill roaches goes away. It has been 5 months but roaches are still there and are in plenty and uncontrollable state.2) A day back, in noon time suddenly water started falling from the roof in our living room. We were shocked and i call all my roommates. I was calling all my roommates and suddenly the roof of living room fall down. After investigation we found out that the sprinkler pipe got bursted and this incident happened. Sprinkler pipe was made of plastic and probably there were no insulator which are required. Luckily each of us are safe, but sprinkler pipes of plastic are still there in every rooms. We room mates are afraid that these event may happen again.We asked him for temporary accomodation or pay us for living in Motel. But he bluntly refused and said that hw you have to manage by yourself and you dnt pay me the rent for the day you day out of house. We are currently staying at our neighbours place.We are highly anoyed with his statement and inresponsibility for the act.What legal step we as tenants can take on him?Can we break the lease contract? I am in state of North Carolina.
Is a landlord required to notify new applicants about a registered sex offender level 1 currently living in the same duplex complex that i am applying for? Don't i have the right to know before i hand over my money and then let me decide if i want to still rent or not? I have 3 small boys and i don't feel that i had a fare decision on the saftey and well being of my boys now.
This Article has been very helpful to me, although I have a question. I have to break a lease that was signed a month in advance an we paid x amount of money to the landlord and now they don't want to return the money not even charging us with a penalty. the lease is not even active.
I live on the main floor of a house that was split into two apartments. Last weekend, the tenant in the basement had a friend over. At 3:30 in the morning on Sunday, a firetruck and ambulance were called to his apartment, and the friend died (which we only officially found out about 3-4 days later by directly asking the landlord). According to the police blotter in the local paper, the downstairs tenant was arrested for possesion of drug paraphanalia and controlled substances. I am not sure that I feel safe here with my teenage son and fiancee. The landlord, who used to live in our apartment, is friends with both the downstairs neighbor and the deceased. Can we get out of the lease?I would put suchin writing and send certified mail and state you are brreaking the lease due to concerns for health and safety and that you wish to schedule time to have property inspected and checked off to insure no damages are filed against you. SOnt just bail out and later say why. Be upfront and nonconfrontational about such.
I recently moved from an apartment complex. I spoke with the property manager numerous times about the safety of me and my child, and informed the manager that they really needed security. You would have thought the police lived there as much as they were there. I broke my lease after a brick was thrown through a bedroom window & my car was vandalized.That was the last straw.The complex kept my security deposit which was 525.00 and are now saying I owe 101.00 more for breaking the lease. I left my apartment in better condition than it was when I moved in. Someone also tried to break in my apartment. This complex is a very unsafe place to live. It was the worst place I have ever lived at.
I moved into an apartment in December of 2009. We recently have been having various problems with other Tenants and the Landlord. Cigarette smoke is causing me health issues giving me sinus infections. The water doesn't work properly. It will fluctuate temperature causing burns and being froze. The stairwell sways as you walk on them and we cannot get sleep due to noisy neighbors. I contacted my Landlord with these issues and He refuses to fix them. What are my options for moving and breaking the lease?
I helped my daughter out by signing a lease with her so that she could rent a house in Chillicothe. The landlord would not rent to her, because she had just recently started a new job. In December, 2010 I contacted the landlord and asked him to remove my name from the lease. He refused to remove my name, he said that I need to move into the house. I tried to explain to him that it would cause a conflict between me and my husband. Bottom line I never moved into the home; I was trying to help my daughter out so her and her 2 year old daughter could rent the home. She decided to move out the end of December, 2010 because of mold in the bathroom. Now the landlord keeps calling me at my place of employment harassing and threatening to take me to court. This is not the first time he has threatened to take me to court. He did this when I asked him on December
10th to release me from the lease. My fear is that if he keeps calling my place of employment I am going to get written up or loose my job. Today he has called my work at least 8 times since 12:26pm. Yesterday he called me at work, I explained that I am at work and cannot talk on the
phone. He can take me to court, I don't care. But he had not right to discriminate against my daughter renting his home.
I am trying to understand everything, because he is calling my sister, my mother, the other people that I work with stating he needs to get a hold of me. I told him I cannot talk on the phone at work. I never lived in the home I just helped my daughter out. He is expecting me to leave my husband and live in the home. I am not going to leave my husband. I have told this guy this. Also per the lease it states he can enter the home anytime without giving any kind of notice. I found that this is against the law, he must give a 24 hr notice. Also, any repairs that needed to the home he asked that we do them and get him a copy of the receipt and he would let us know when to deduct from the rent.
My fiance and I signed a lease with an option to purchase in march of 2010. We signed the lease with an elderly man that owned the house as well as owning the private road that led to the house. He past away in July of 2010, and the property and the lease agreement was left for his heir to uphold. The road is gravel, curvy and goes up hill, and since his passing his heir has not not done proper maintenance to the road. I have contacted her by phone since january with no clear indication of what kind of actions would be taken, only saying she would find out who is responsible or not returning my phone calls. I have sent her two certified letters asking who is responsible for the maintenance and what would be done, she has recieved the letters but has not written me back or called me. When it rains the road is muddy and unsafe to drive on... family members have came to visit and have wrecked, one of the family members trucks actually caught the engine on fire trying to make it up the muddy hill. In the lease agreement it does not state who is responsible for the roads, but like i said the man we signed the lease with took care of them so we didn't think it would need to be mentioned because he owns the roads... "orcourse he would take care of them" what a silly thought. Is it possible to get out of the lease because of these conditions without have to pay the rest of the term??? Please help me!!!
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