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Lease termination options

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Sylar

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

What are (if any) options for terminating a lease?

I signed a 1 year lease in March. Unfortunately, the research we did on the area and the company was inaccurate, to be nice about it. We are having a lot of problems with the situation where we are even entertaining the idea of not paying rent just to get evicted (pretty desperate, huh?)

- The landlord and staff have the nasty habit of just walking into our house for all sorts of random things (preventative maintenance, extermination (bugs) inspection, showing off the floor plan to other potential tennents, etc. They don't knock. They don't call. They don't give notice of any kind.

- The crime rate and the homeless are out of control. Cars are broken into weekly. There is an apartment 6 doors down where an old man was beat for his medications. There is an obvious drug house in the building next to ours. Random people drive/walk around trying to deal drugs. Homeless people are starting to get so abundant and loiter outside all round the building for no good reason whatsoever and it scares the crap out of me having two young girls.

- Maintenance, even emergency maintenance takes days. I've had an instance where the average temperature was 95 degrees outside and the air conditioner broke. It got well over 100F in there and we had to bring in a borrowed window AC, at which point the management company tried to "fine" us.

We also had another incident where the pipe in the toilet broke and water was just pouring out for two days because they didn't get anyone there sooner.

Rather than go overboard with multitudes of other such things, lets just stick to the original question... what are legal reasons (if any) that I can break a lease?

Thanks
 


Gail in Georgia

Senior Member
It would benefit you to review the attached which goes over your options as a tenant if your landlord does not address repair issues:

Real Estate Blog - Landlord Tenant Laws, Chapter 83 Florida Statutes

You do have such options as reporting violations to the Code Board, and withholding rent. However, you must be careful to follow all the legal guidelines as outlined in Florida statutes.

If, after attempting what has been outlined in the article (and keeping careful documentation of the steps you taken) you still don't get satisfaction, then you can consider terminating your lease.

Your biggest concern if you bystep these requirements is that you might find yourself facing a lawsuit for owed rent.

I'd suggest focusing on the length of time it takes for them to make repairs. Unfortunately it is not the landlords/managements responsibility to provide you with a safe neighborhood.

Gail
 

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