Breaking a Lease

[shannah]

I have just bought a condo and although my lease will not be up for 3 more months I need to get out at the end of this month. I gave my manager 30 day notice of my intent and expect that I will lose my deposit, which is a full month of rent.
Unfortunately our apartment building has been plagued with problems from no hot water to things in my apartment not getting fixed for months on end, to garbage everywhere. This has motivated not only myself, but at least 3 others in our complex to move because of the state of disrepair our building is in. When I spoke with the manager he said that there is no way I will be able to get out of lease because the owner will not allow it because so many others are also moving unless I pay out the remainder of my lease.
Do I have any recourse here? Due to so many problems with the building?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[LL]

Lets see. You have 3 months remaining on your lease, you just gave 30 days notice, you are willing to lose your security deposit which is another month's rent. That leaves 1 months rent to write e-mails about and bother us over.

What a coincidence that the apartment becomes unliveable just at the time that you bought a condo.

You owe rent until the end of the lease. Perhaps the landlord will try to rent it out for the remainder of the lease period on your behalf, but that means to find a tenant for two months, in order to try to save you 1 month's rent.

Why don't you talk to the landlord and see what you can work out. If nothing, pay the rent until the end of the lease.

 

[shannah]

Thanks for the info, although you must not have read too closely otherwise you would not have assumed that I would only be out 1 month of rent. Actually I would be out 3 months of rent including the security deposit. In addition, the reason that I began to look for a new home is because of all the problems that I have had with the apartment, despite repeated attempts to get repairs done.

 

[LL]

The amount is not important.

But no judge will believe you about the building being uninhabitable since:
1) You are leaving anyway.
2) You are not moving because of problems in the building.
3) You bought a condo.

I had a similar problem once,

tenant gave notice,

sent a letter from a lawyer claiming all sorts of problems that I know were not true, that she won't pay any more rent, to use the security deposit and that's the end of it

I found out from a neighbor about her having bought a condo.

I sent a letter back to the lawyer pointing this out and asserting that he was as crazy as "mary hartman"

I got the rent by return mail.

In return, I rented out the apartment to someone else, and credited her with the rent I collected from the replacement tenant.

You have a problem to expect the landlord to find a replacement tenant for only 3 months. Plus, you will owe for all of his turnover costs, including the expenses of rerenting, including paying for his time to do all of this.

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