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I am a tenant who lives in mecklenburg county. I have signed a 1 year lease directly to my landlord through online ezlandlordforms. My lease expires on June 15th.
Issue: My lease document does not talk anything about lease breakage. It does talk about 60 days notice period before i vacate though. Now I am buying a new home, and it is ready for me in March. I am not in a position to make overlapping payment of my rental and mortgage. I called my landlord, and explained the situation. He wanted me to buy his home that am renting which am not interested. Now, he is not letting me vacate the home before June 15th as per my lease.
If lease does talk about 60 days notice period on a 1 year lease, does that mean i can vacate the home anytime with 60 days notice? Landlord says lease is for one year and he recommend me to obey the lease. If i dont renew my lease, it should expire by default. Then why 60 days notice period? He asks me to give him a notice on April 15th.
I have told him, i could look for a tenant. He does not want me to do that and he does not want to put the house in the market. I have given one month rent as my deposit.
Regardless, I want to move out and break my lease with proper cleaning for the house. What are the implication? Just yesterday i have received a notice from a property management company saying that i need to pay my rent to them starting february and they will do the inspection when i move out.
Should i obey that notice? Since i have been paying my rent on time to my landlord's bank account directly, why should i switch that mode? He might be worried that i may not pay my rent. No, I will pay my rent until March 1st, and then want to move out.
How can i safely hand over the house, key, and get my deposit? I dont want my credit history ruined.
I hope i have given all sufficient details, except my actual lease document itself.
Please assist me, so i can give my notice right away to get out on time.
you can't sign a 1 year lease and then leave after 10 months and expect to keep your deposit. You signed a 1 year lease and need to honor your commitment.
You should have bought your house after the year was up or closer to the end of the lease.
If i still break my lease, what is the implication? Buying a house is not like renting, that i can find exactly the time when my lease expires. Market is good, and i found the nice home for my taste, and am buying it. It's nothing wrong, nor am doing anything illegal here. I am just trying to understand, if i can break my lease, and what's the implication.
Issue: My lease document does not talk anything about lease breakage. It does talk about 60 days notice period before i vacate though. Now I am buying a new home, and it is ready for me in March. I am not in a position to make overlapping payment of my rental and mortgage. I called my landlord, and explained the situation.
Here is the blunt reality.
Without seeing the lease, I'm of the opinion that you are liable for any unpaid amounts on the lease. So, not only is the landlord able to keep your deposit, he can also take you to small claims court in order to collect 2 months rent and any other damages (if any) that might have resulted from the early termination. He will most likely win. The fact that you bought a home won't make any difference as this was your choice. A lease is a binding contract and without any termination clauses, you are obligated to meet your commitment. i.e. 12 months rent.
I'd say that you either need to work this out with your builder for a later delivery, or be prepared to lose the full amount. You might see if you could arrive at some settlement with the landlord, but make sure you get a notarized paper saying the lease is terminated.
Typically, if you're lease runs out and you dont renew for a certain amount of time, it automatically goes to a month to month contract, though a lease usually spells that out. That is what the 60 days notice would apply to.
You could take your chances and see if he comes after you for owed rent, but it sounds like the contract protects him . I always make sure contracts protect myself as well.
You could also try pushing out your closing date on your new house as to avoid paying both a mortgatge and rent.
I hear from someone that 60 days notice period on a one year lease agreement is illegal. Technically one year lease agreement expires by itself. So why do i have to provide 60 days notice period?
I agree with frewroad. You signed the lease for 1 year. You most likely paid a deposit. You usually need to give 60 days notice if you want to continue for another term of same or similar length. In the meantime, your rent is due 12 times during the lease period. At the end of the lease, provided you have kept the place is as good order as you received it, you should then get your deposit back.
Obviously one needs to read the lease in its entirety and then with special reference to the lease breakage or other relevant clauses before a definitive answer may be given here.
If you wished to break a lease in one of my properties, I would listen but for two months, I would need to find a new tenant to take replace you before I agreed to breaking the lease. I rent out properties to help fund my retirement. No rent, no food. It is that simple but this is my problem. You bought a house, I am happy for you but, I would not let that stop me from buying for me and my family.
Please post a vanilla copy of the lease from the website you refer to and we will see if there is a way out. My guess, and it is only a guess, would be that there is not. You need to insure that you are going to get 100% of your deposit back by releasing the property in top condition.
If you signed a lease where you agreed to pay your landlord $____/mth for 12 months then that is the amount of money that you should expect to pay. That amount doesn't change regardless of your purpose for leaving or if you'd decided to buy a house after just 1 month into your lease.
Not being able to afford payments on both places is a consideration that should have taken place before you purchased the house, not afterwards.
I called my landlord, and explained the situation.
Now, he is not letting me vacate the home before June 15th as per my lease.
I have told him, i could look for a tenant. He does not want me to do that
and he does not want to put the house in the market.
Your LL is being stubborn, foolish, contrary and telling you wrong things to boot.
Yes, you have an obligation to pay rent until the end of the term.
But he also has an obligation to attempt to re-rent the house and "mitigate" those costs.
Unless the house is so nasty that the Code Enforcement people would shut it down...
in the current hot hot hot rental market it shouldn't take long to find a new tenant.
@LiLShorty4lyfe: Thank you! I already did my best to push my closure date, and March first week was the latest i could do. I definitely cannot afford overlapping payment. I am not worrying about my deposit. Let's say if i pay my march rent, and he has my deposit, and i leave the house real clean, technically i owe him 1.5 months rent.
And the fact is, i did not give him the checklist inspection paper when i moved in. Now that sucks.
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