Is it possible to break a renting lease in Florida if you are buying a new home? (sublet)

[TuEKiD]

A coworker of mine told me that she was able to break her lease on her rental because she was purchasing a new home. I am in the same position and have been frantically looking for this statute and I cannot find it, the contract says you cannot sublet unless I have written approval, I have found another person to rent the property that the owner has already met, but now he wants to keep my deposit and make me pay another half a month, (which I cannot afford). So if anyone is familiar with this or can help me find it I have posted a link below with the Florida Statutes, not sure if this is the right information to be quite honest but it sure looks like it.

[url=http://archive.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?m&App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String =&URL=0000-0099/0083/0083PARTIIContentsIndex.html]Flsenate Archive: Statutes & Constitution > View Statutes[/url]

[alex80]

Although I haven't been in your situation, I imagine whatever was in the rental lease that you signed is what you have to go by. Generally if you give them one or two month's notice, they'll give you your deposit back. That's how it's been with the couple of places I've rented. Hopefully someone else will find what you're looking for, though.

[Rabflmom]

Originally Posted by alex80

Although I haven't been in your situation, I imagine whatever was in the rental lease that you signed is what you have to go by. Generally if you give them one or two month's notice, they'll give you your deposit back. That's how it's been with the couple of places I've rented. Hopefully someone else will find what you're looking for, though.

Read your lease and it will tell you what you will owe them if you break the lease. In our case we lost the damage deposit, the last month rent we had had to pay in advance when we signed the lease so it cost us about $2000 to break the lease. There was also a clause that if they could not find a renter for it then we would owe for the months the apartment sat empty, but they didn't hold us to that one.

[FL2MT]

I've seen this "I can break my lease if I buy a place thing" come up before and as far as I can tell it's just an urban legend. As others have mentioned, you're bound by the terms of the lease so your landlord is within their rights to hold you to that deal you both agreed to. Your best bet is generally to try and work something out with the landlord rather than getting too oppositional with them.

As an aside though, if you can't afford the half month of rent and loss of security deposit do you really think you're in a good position to be purchasing a home? Setup/moving-in costs, unexpected maintenance, all those things are going to be significantly more than a security deposit and half month's rent.