Landlord being relentous in verbal agreement.

[bzeyer]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Utah
We entered a 12 month lease with our landlord September 18th, 2009. We originally applied for government housing and were put on a 12 month waiting list. After living here for 7 weeks we were called and informed we could move to this government housing. We met with our landlord and he verbally agreed that as long as we found a good tenant to replace us and take the remainder of our lease he would allow us to move at no further expense to us or to him. He would allow us out of the lease. We have had several applications submitted and several tenants ready and willing to take the apartment now as is. We contacted our landlord and he absolutely refused to consider the applicants. He wants to do credit checks and background checks on each application. We understand that, however, he refuses to even consider the current applications without even trying these said checks. What are our rights to this verbal agreement if he is going to deny each applicant we have found to take the lease? We have held our end of the bargain by finding tenants? What are our rights in this situation?

 

[eridon2002]

It's his property and he is protecting it by running credit and background checks on prospective tenants. Any landlord with half a brain will do this. He needs to be sure they are qualified to rent his property, not that they just have a pulse.

 

[Baranov]

We understand that, however, he refuses to even consider the current applications without even trying these said checks.

Do you mean he is not doing the credit checks and rejecting applicants? Or, are you saying that he insists on doing credit and background checks?

 

[bzeyer]

He did not even consider the applications we have turned in. So the main thing we wonder is: is he trying to make this difficult for us? What do we do if he isn't willing to meet us halfway on this? We completely understand and appreciate his desire to have good tenants. We are looking for good people. We just don't understand why he is making this so difficult?

 

[Hot Topic]

How do you know he "did not even consider" the applications you submitted?

 

[Baranov]

I had previously deleted my post, but in it I posed the probability that your landlord may have rejected your applicants by association to past or present tenants. We don't often talk about it, but we keep list of deadbeat tenants and their association so that we don't make the same mistake twice.

I had a tenant try to rent from me dating back from a tenancy of 10 years ago. He was a problem then and I refuse to rent to him again. He claimed it was discrimination. I told him I agreed. It was discrimination based on past behavior.