Early termination of lease - new tenant found but $500 asked (fee, landlords)
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As I said in a prior post, many landlords charge the owner a fee every time they place a tenant. 1/2 month's rent is pretty normal. So if every tenant signs a year lease, but then breaks their lease after 3 months, the owner is out 2 months' worth of rent in just one year's time.
I don't think that charging a $500 rerental fee on a $1600/month rental is at ALL unreasonable. That is only the equivalent of about 9 days rent. Totally fair, even with the OP finding their own replacement. If they hadn't, it would have been fair to charge $500 PLUS rent until a replacement was found.
That is the whole point of having a contractural time frame. If you could break it at any time with no penalties, then why not just have everyone month to month, or week to week. Contracts exist for a reason.
He's entitled to $4800 in rent and he'll get that from the new tenant. Since he can't collect rent from both people at the same time he entitled to $0(after she pays august) from the current tenant.
The $500 isn't rent, it's a *fee*.
How much is it going to cost to clean the place?
How much is it going to cost to check out this new tenant & prepare a new lease?
Those are real costs, that *someone* has to pay.
Are you arguing that the new tenant will really accept the property "as is",
With crunchy carpets, a dirty stove & fridge & curly hairs on the toilet?
What's "clean" to a tenant who is moving out is *not* clean to a tenant moving in.
And don't forget lost rent - there's no way a tenant is moving in the same day the op moves out.
Not going to happen- the fee covers the lost rent as well.
Leases are one-sided contracts, if you don't like that, there's an alternative - buy.
And you're continuing to ignore the OTHER side of the transaction.
When the OP leaves the apartment in good condition, and with notice to t continuing to he LL...
the LL becomes obliged by law to attempt to relet the unit asap. Without delay.
If there are condition issues they become a separate discussion.
There is no reason to believe they enter this discussion at all.
The minute the LL secures a new paying tenant the OP no longer has any obligation.
In this instance that delay would be approximately ZERO days.
This is why negotiating EITHER a flat fee for early termination by the tenant...
(a circumstance so common that most leases will describe these terms)
with NO OTHER obligation on their part is a reasonable compromise.
But in the face of minimal to zero bother, concern or expense by the LL it is
quite outrageous to attempt to gig the OP for anything more than a token fee.
Totally and completely outrageous.
In this case the LL gets a higher paying, decent quality tenant...
and still wants to gig the OP on top of that.
NO. One or the other of these is reasonable... but NOT both.
Are you a landlord, by any chance?
The OP needs to read her lease. Hasn't mentioned one thing that the lease states about early termination....is $500 the "buyout" clause?
Tenants need to understand that a lease is not a fly by the seat of your pants piece of paper. It's a legally binding contract.
Read it and understand it before you sign it.
Some mortgages come with penalties attached for paying said mortgage off early. Taking your own money out of certain types of investment/retirement/savings accounts come with penalties too. Why should breaking a lease be any different? What's the argument going to be for the first two scenarios mentioned? The mortgage company is still signing up new mortgages? The 401K/IRA funds are still signing up new investors?
What does the new tenant paying more per month in rent have to do with breaking the lease? If the OP re-signed, would there be no increase in rent? Even then, it has nothing to do with anything.
Requesting a fee for early termination of a lease and said tenant finding a replacement tenant to finish out the lease being broken is both reasonable and legal (at least in the state I live in).
Most LL's charge a late fee for rent not being paid on time. They shouldn't, if they get the rent 20 days late? At least they got it? Be happy and shut up?
Me, personally? When one of my tenants breaks a lease, all I ask is that they find a new tenant, on their own time and using their own money for advertising. Until they do, and the "new/replacement tenant" signs MY lease and their security deposit clears the bank, and I get first month's rent, they (the lease breaker/s) are still contractually bound to pay the rent. Doesn't matter if they moved out or not.
Are you a landlord, by any chance? Retired from it now.
Me, personally? When one of my tenants (gives notice they need to) breaks a lease, all I ask is that they find a new tenant, on their own time and using their own money for advertising. Until they do, and the "new/replacement tenant" signs MY lease and their security deposit clears the bank, and I get first month's rent, they (the lease breaker/s) are still contractually bound to pay the rent.
So being a retired LL (do you miss it at all? ) you "get it".
It depends on what market you are in, where you are, and what you put in a lease when it comes to early termination. What would help, tremendously, is if people would actually read the leases they sign, and refer to the lease before complaining about something.
I don't know MA law. But I do know that in NJ and FL you can't collect double rent.
Yes, it's a pain to release an apartment, yes, there's paperwork, but that has nothing to do with law. Generally landlord's can't collect double rent.
If the $500 isn't mentioned as an early termination fee in the lease (or any other fee) - the landlord may not be allowed to charge it. It depends on the MA statutes and what is in the lease that the tenant signed.
How much is it going to cost to check out this new tenant & prepare a new lease?
Those are real costs, that *someone* has to pay.
Ii
Are you arguing that the new tenant will really accept the property "as is",
With crunchy carpets, a dirty stove & fridge & curly hairs on the toilet?
What's "clean" to a tenant who is moving out is *not* clean to a tenant moving in.
And don't forget lost rent - there's no way a tenant is moving in the same day the op moves out.
Not going to happen- the fee covers the lost rent as well.
Leases are one-sided contracts, if you don't like that, there's an alternative - buy.
Cleaning costs are taken out of the security deposit, if the op didn't leave the place.clean shell have to pay for som.eone to clean it. Doesn't have anything to do with this "fee
"
And if you read the op the op is paying August rent and the new tenant is moving in September there is no.lost rent
The op hasn't said if this fee was in lease. And if its not this 500 dollars is not a fee its damages and courts award damages and no court is going to award 500 dollars for a Secretary to take 15 minutes switching names out on a lease
Cleaning costs are taken out of the security deposit, if the op didn't leave the place.clean shell have to pay for som.eone to clean it. Doesn't have anything to do with this "fee
"
And if you read the op the op is paying August rent and the new tenant is moving in September there is no.lost rent
The op hasn't said if this fee was in lease. And if its not this 500 dollars is not a fee its damages and courts award damages and no court is going to award 500 dollars for a Secretary to take 15 minutes switching names out on a lease
I'm not a landlord, but I would assume that there is some minor cleaning that goes on between tenants in almost every case, even if nothing is taken out of the security deposit. At the very least, the landlord has to take the time to go through the unit and make sure it's clean, and time is money.
And like I said, I don't see how a fee for breaking the lease would need to be in the lease. If you're breaking that contract, it shouldn't matter what you previously agreed to, since you're legally ending that agreement.
Whether or not there is ANY cleaning to be done, there is still a fair amount of work involved. We send a cleaning person into every unit between tenants. If everything is in clean condition and she is in and out in an hour or two, that is on our dime. More than 2 hours and the whole thing is on the tenant's dime because it wasn't clean enough. We change the batteries in the smoke detectors, change the furnace filters, check the lightbulbs, every time the unit is vacant. Those things cost both money and time. Doing the background check and references check on a new tenant takes time. And I don't know what responsible landlord would just "change the names on the lease". You sign an all new lease with a new tenant, which on our lease, takes about an hour to an hour and a half. And that is all after the tenant has been found.
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) you "get it".
