Lease termination/breaking lease

What is the name of your state? PA

My lease is written that I must give 4 months notice if I plan to not renew my lease for another year. I recently decided to move out at the end of July '04 and only gave the landlord 10 weeks notice (so technically my lease was renewed until Sept '05.)

Do I have any options other than pay my rent for Sept'04-Sept'05 until we find someone to fill the apartment?

I doubt that not giving them 120 days notice automatically renews the lease. If it is an apartment complex or large managed property, that is most likely just how they offer you the opportunity to keep your same monthly rent, otherwise it may go up.

This is from previous experience and nothing else. I was just offering a glimpse of hope for you. It very well could be legally incorrect.

I don't have the lease in front of me but it says you must provide 120 days else the lease will be automatically renewed. It doesn't help with rent increases either because my rent still increases every year even with the 120day prior auto-renewal.

[JETX]

"Do I have any options other than pay my rent for Sept'04-Sept'05 until we find someone to fill the apartment?"
*** Yes. Simply, move out. The landlord can ONLY claim damages from you for the period of 'lost rent' due to your breach. Simply, this means that if they re-lease the property within XX days, they have only suffered for those numbers of days..... they CANNOT collect rent for the full lease period no matter what they say.

More than likely, they will claim your full deposit as 'damages' (and you may have to litigate that issue), but even that is far better than the expectation to pay 14 months rent!!

Further, I believe that a court would strike their '4 month notice or default renewal' as unreasonable and excessive if this were to get that far.