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Old 04-13-2014, 12:42 PM
 
3 posts, read 3,795 times
Reputation: 10

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Hello,

So I am a college student in Normal-Bloomington. Last October I had signed a renewal lease to extend my lease until May 17th of 2015. In January I decided to leave ISU after this semester and to go back home to save money instead (I'm not close to graduating). I emailed the apartment and talked to them in January and they said the only way out is to sublease. After months of searching I finally found one to come in on the 11th of April (this past Friday) and she loved it. However, the next day she sends me a picture of an email she received from the apartment complex offering her a better deal if she signs with them and not take my lease. I went down and spoke to the guy there and he offered me a negotiation saying that she can take the deal they offered but go under my lease. Unfortunately, she no longer wants it because they are undermining a student who has taken months to find a subleaser! I went down again today to speak to the lease manager and she said that it's protocol for them to send those emails out to potential subleasers and that seems a bit odd to me since they are basically trying to screw over everyone trying to lease out their apartment! This can't be legal? They only gave me ONE option and now they are trying to take that one option away from me. I tried to negotiate in the months prior to this but now they only want to negotiate since they are obviously in the wrong and got caught. Would this stand in a small claims court if I took it that far? I'm going to give them an ultimatum if it would be able to stand in court which would be to allow me to cancel my lease or I'm taking them to court. They have screwed around with me for 4 months, it took them from January 20th to April 6th to reply to me about anything concerning my lease other than to try to find a subleaser and now they are trying to drag it out even more and point the blame at each other so that I don't know who actually knows anything in their establishment. Please help!
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Old 04-13-2014, 06:08 PM
 
3 posts, read 3,795 times
Reputation: 10
Can anyone give me some insight on this? I just need opinions on it really
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Old 04-13-2014, 06:35 PM
 
Location: broke leftist craphole Illizuela
10,326 posts, read 17,382,316 times
Reputation: 20327
It sounds slimy but I doubt it is illegal. You need to look at your lease. Is there some sort of penalty you can pay to get out of it early like 60 days notice and 1-2 months rent. Otherwise your options are 1. stay the remainder of your lease 2. Find a sublet, 3. walk out and make them chase your for the rent either in court or likely via a collections agency destroying your credit for several years.

You might also post on apartmentratings.com and other sites to warn other potential renters about it.
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Old 04-13-2014, 07:20 PM
 
3 posts, read 3,795 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MSchemist80 View Post
It sounds slimy but I doubt it is illegal. You need to look at your lease. Is there some sort of penalty you can pay to get out of it early like 60 days notice and 1-2 months rent. Otherwise your options are 1. stay the remainder of your lease 2. Find a sublet, 3. walk out and make them chase your for the rent either in court or likely via a collections agency destroying your credit for several years.

You might also post on apartmentratings.com and other sites to warn other potential renters about it.
The contract states that there is no way to cancel. I offered them 2 months rent in January but they weren't taking it. I can't stay the remainder of the lease unfortunately and I found a sublet but they tried to offer her a similar deal as mine (one months rent).
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Old 04-14-2014, 07:33 AM
 
Location: broke leftist craphole Illizuela
10,326 posts, read 17,382,316 times
Reputation: 20327
That is a tough situation I can't really see any options for you other than stay or skip out. Most places are more reasonable because a bad tennant can make life a lot more miserable for a landlord than a landlord can for a tennant.
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Old 04-15-2014, 12:50 PM
 
Location: Arizona
3,763 posts, read 6,692,331 times
Reputation: 2396
The complex you are at is a business and as that business they offered you a contract which you signed. For the most part those are pretty air tight. However, have they not mentioned you can break your lease? If you are not familiar with breaking a lease it is because a way for you to pay X amount of dollars to get out of the lease. In your initial lease you signed it should state whether that is an option or not. Maybe even contact a real estate lawyer see what options you have....usually no charge to get advice.
Try posting some questions on legal advice sites such as avvo.com or similar as well(it's free).

As far as subleasing, I'm guessing the reason why they offered your subleaser a better deal is because they want to make profit off of two instead of one. I would suggest if you give them an ultimatum put it in writing and send it certified mail, even though you live there at least you will have proof they received it instead of your word against theres and whatever responses you get from them, make them put it in writing.
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Old 04-23-2014, 01:59 PM
 
4 posts, read 6,584 times
Reputation: 10
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see you having any legal ground to stand on. If you extended the lease by signing a contract that states there is no early termination option, then I don't find anything illegal about them not offering an early termination option, especially when you signed for such a long extension.

Imagine it as if you had found someone to sublease, they agreed to your terms with no termination option, then two months in decided they wanted out... but you had already counted on having their lease money for the full term and had made it clear up front that they couldn't back out. You would want them to stay and pay instead of having to find another tenant.

As far as offering her a better deal than you... that's business. I'm not aware of a law that prevents management companies from offering special deals to get tenants to sign a lease. You see them all the time. Is there anything stopping you from offering her an even better deal? Instead of one month of free rent, maybe you could offer her two months, the same amount you were willing to pay back in January to break the lease?

Lastly, you mentioned that the leasing office had said that it would be fine for her to take their deal under your lease terms, but that she's no longer interested in that. While its their choice to offer a termination clause in the contract or not and kind of crappy that they don't, it sounds like they are at least slightly willing to work with you on the issue by making that compromise. I don't see grounds for legal action against them just because your potential replacement tenant got cold feet about it.

In summary, you seem to have five main options: stay and continue to pay, leave and continue to pay, sublet out with a better deal, convince your potential subletter to reconsider, or leave, refuse to pay and accept whatever consequences come from it.
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Old 04-28-2014, 01:12 AM
 
936 posts, read 2,198,059 times
Reputation: 938
It sounds like they are interfering in a real estate deal that you have and that's usually against state law if any of the people or entities you are dealing with have a real estate license. I'd contact an attorney or the Office of Banks and Real Estate to file a complaint against any of the licensed individuals you dealt with.

The threat of doing so might convince them to just let you out of your lease. Otherwise, subleasing is usually the only way to get out of your lease unless there is language to the contrary.
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