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Old 01-24-2014, 07:52 PM
 
93 posts, read 225,251 times
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As a landlord, I think a lot of tenants forget that it isn't personal - it's just business.

Tenants attach emotional value to the process when it's simply a business transaction. I'm indifferent to the reasons why a tenant could potentially desire to break a lease. My only concern is with my business investment. If the matter can be handled in such a way that I don't end up on the financially losing end in the transaction, so be it. That isn't greed - it's business.
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Old 01-24-2014, 08:44 PM
 
10,181 posts, read 10,215,386 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
here is a heads up for you landlords .

there are legal ways to break leases and the landlord isn't even aware he is being set up.

in states that have surrender and control laws a shrewed tenant can generally get out of a lease at most building complexes by using a tactic called "surrender and control "that goes right under the radar.
Surrender and control laws? Can't find 'em. Are they dual or separate? Do you have a link?

Quote:
.....usually office workers at the management office are not very well skilled in the law.

a shrewd tenant sends the office a return receipt letter notifying them on such and such a date they will be breakng their lease and SURRENDERING THE KEYS and gives them an address to mail their security deposit to.

like most offices the workers will just file it away and not respond yet.
On what planet do "office workers" just file away someone's request to break a lease early? Let alone a private LL?

Quote:
well when that day comes , just surrender the keys to them as you outlined in your letter and off you go.

of course they will try to charge you for breaking the lease or until it is re-rented and that is when they find out they were out smarted .
Not every rental office is full of morons, and not every private LL is a moron. Maybe NY is chock full...

Out-smarted in what way?

Quote:
the word SURRENDER in many states is a very powerful legal word. in ny operation of law the word surrender is so powerful it can over ride leases and contracts as a key surrender which is accepted even un-knowingly overides the lease terms as a new contract which the landlord accepted the terms of by not rejecting it or accepting the keys back...
Really? When a tenant uses the word "surrender" the earth quakes and LL's shake?

Quote:
.......once you have accepted the tenants terms of surrender by not responding and saying no your not or accepting the keys the tenant is off the hook.
Off the hook for WHAT? Who doesn't respond to a tenant breaking the lease early?

Quote:
....of course once a shrewdy who knows how to work the laws does this to an office the office usually is alot smarter if they see this ploy again being done so it really only works once before they get wiser.
The absolutes, written by you.

Does this pertain to NY state tenant/LL laws only? No LL with a brain files away a request to break a lease early b/c the word "surrender" is in it. Tenants aren't filing claims, they are writing a letter and the BIG words in their little letter don't mean a thing coming from one lay person to another.

Quote:
other tactics are by using the "CONTROL " portion of "SURRENDER AND CONTROL" this can apply in far more states than "surrender"

when a tenant breaks a lease and moves out the landlord usually goes in and starts to renovate and paint so they can re-rent. they also try to charge the tenant until the place is re-rented.
Hello? The tenant moved out/vacated/terminated the lease on their own time line and IF the lease states that the tenant has to pay rent up and until the unit is re-rented, where is the LAW that states the tenant has any right to whine about who does what in the unit/property/apt they willingly moved out of before their lease was officially over?

Quote:
well under most state law a little know fact is a landlord cannot have it both ways. he can not claim he is holding you to the lease and it is still your apartment yet take control of your apartment and fix it up to re-rent for himself..
What state laws? Cite them, please.

Quote:
.... if done correctly the landlord can have it both ways but it is never done correctly . the landlord needs to get written authorization from the tenant allowing him to mitigate the tenants damages by fixing and repainting and re-renting but on his own the landlord is deemed to have taken control of the apartment back from the tenant if he does this on his own.
Cite the law that states as such.

Quote:
....at best the tenant would only be responsible for the few days prior to them going in and "taking control" by starting work.
You are confusing apples with oranges.

You can't have it both ways as a tenant who breaks the lease early, and not when there is a provision in the lease that states the tenant who breaks a lease early is responsible for rent and up and until the property is re-rented.

Quote:
.....a good lawyer skilled in breaking leases has an arsenal behind them. most of the tactics a landlord won't even see coming.
There's only so much, and being reasonable does come in to play.

Quote:
27 years as a landlord in nyc has taught me a whole lot and gives you a good education as to how the laws on the books really are only in place to protect tenants not landlords.
You don't need 27 years to know that.

Bosco? R. Rita? Can you guys weigh in?
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Old 01-25-2014, 03:13 AM
 
105,987 posts, read 107,954,552 times
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first i think you need a good attorney to explain things to you . you would need access to your states housing court cases to see the rulings on these as they are just case by case rulings and you will not find them anymore than you can find my speeding ticket case on line.

surrender and control laws go under a states operation of law. i can't say how or if your state arrives at them. they are usually not a specific listing of laws as much as contract law being extended and refined in courts.

there are references to it all over the internet but they may be difficult to understand. google surrender by operation of law.

as far as what planet do workers file it away? just about every office manager in every management office does. they don't realize they need to respond at that point.

they have their own office procedures and protocals which are usually the same in every case.

you tell them you are moving and breaking the lease, they wait until you move, they get the apartment ready ,they re-rent and bill you for the un-rented time.

in their minds the fact you are telling them you are breaking the lease does not mean much to them as they just follow standard protocal just as they always do.

it was my ex wife who did just that when she had an apartment she couldn't afford after our divorce . an attorney guided her and it played out like clock work just as the attorney said it would.

the notification did not raise one eyebrow. you have to remember some of these offices deal with thousands of aparments. everything is routine after a while and nothing goes against their standard procedures .

they also went in the next day and started to renovate the apartment . had they contested the key surrender they would have lost the taking control of the apartment the next day segment anyway . their own lawyers agreed it was silly to take this to court as they told the management office they can only mitigate damages on the tenants behalf if they are claiming it is still their apartment and by having nothing in writting from my ex wife authorizing them it can be deemed they are doing it for their own betterment and not mitigating damages.
by renovating to re-rent for more money and their own betterment they took back control .


you can't claim you are holding someone to a lease and they are responsible for the rent until it is re-rented while going in and renovating and taking away access to the apartment you are claiming is still theirs without their permission..

by renovating to re-rent for more money and their own betterment , while making it impossible for the tenant you are holding to the lease able to utilize that property they took back control .


you have to see how your states courts treat that. some treat the damages you seek as strictly damages for breach of contract. others treat the damages as you are holding them to the lease and considering them still in possesion until it is re-rented. . there is a difference whether or not they are considered still in possesion once they move breaking the lease. in ny it is still their apartment until re-rented. .

interesting story to show you how tangled these laws are .
we had an apartment in a co-op which we wanted for my son so the tenant was on a monthly and we gave her 60 day notice we were taking the apartment back.

we followed the law and had a process servor deliver the notice.

she never responded as to yes i will be out and when.

our problem was we went there the day she was supposed to be out and we knocked on the door. no answer so we attempted to use the key to gain access and she changed one of the locks.


we had no idea if she was still there in which case we would have to start eviction preceedings to get her out or if she was out and abandoned the apartment.

i called our lawyer who told us this was a real problem because we actually may need a court order to have the locks drilled out to enter the apartment because she could still be in possesion .

i couldn't believe i couldn't take control back on my own apartment legally because if she was still in possesion we had to get an eviction order and i could not even get inside to look.

as luck had it we looked in the back of the building and we saw a moving truck and she was there loading up the last of her things.

had she just driven off and abandoned the place i would have had no way of knowing if she was inside or not and so i couldn't just drill out the locksl egally without a court order.,.

Last edited by mathjak107; 01-25-2014 at 04:43 AM..
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Old 04-13-2014, 10:21 PM
 
548 posts, read 812,859 times
Reputation: 578
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
here is a heads up for you landlords .

there are legal ways to break leases and the landlord isn't even aware he is being set up.

This post by mathjak is well worth reading, though of course things vary by state.

Special tip: when you're just a random private homeowner renting as a sideline, and your tenant is an attorney, an attorney at a firm with a large tenant-rights practice, a firm that literally wrote the landlord-tenant law handbook for the state, you should think _very_ carefully before rejecting that tenant's reasonable lease break offer and playing hardass instead. Oh, you replied to our surrender letter in writing, but took longer than 7 days? You forgot to send it _certified_ instead of just first class? So sorry, but didn't you check the handbook? It's quite clear about all that....

Things didn't quite come to that point for us, fortunately, but at least in our state, yes, landlords have lost rights in court for things as small as not having notice delivered the right way. I was amazed how much more tenant friendly the actual statutes are than the 'standard' lease form everyone seems to use, and I gather case law (which is important, the statutes themselves are way too ambiguous) even more so.

Last edited by neguy99; 04-13-2014 at 10:37 PM..
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Old 04-14-2014, 09:06 AM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
18,813 posts, read 32,322,822 times
Reputation: 38565
Quote:
Originally Posted by neguy99 View Post
This post by mathjak is well worth reading, though of course things vary by state.

Special tip: when you're just a random private homeowner renting as a sideline, and your tenant is an attorney, an attorney at a firm with a large tenant-rights practice, a firm that literally wrote the landlord-tenant law handbook for the state, you should think _very_ carefully before rejecting that tenant's reasonable lease break offer and playing hardass instead. Oh, you replied to our surrender letter in writing, but took longer than 7 days? You forgot to send it _certified_ instead of just first class? So sorry, but didn't you check the handbook? It's quite clear about all that....

Things didn't quite come to that point for us, fortunately, but at least in our state, yes, landlords have lost rights in court for things as small as not having notice delivered the right way. I was amazed how much more tenant friendly the actual statutes are than the 'standard' lease form everyone seems to use, and I gather case law (which is important, the statutes themselves are way too ambiguous) even more so.
I just wanted to say that lawyers don't get special rights. If the lawyer is a tenant, he's a tenant - who happens to have a job as an attorney. The law is still the law. Learn the law or hire an attorney who knows the law, and you'll be fine.

When you know the law, even a lawyer can't bully you. You just listen, then say, "Well, no actually, I'm pretty sure you're wrong on that issue. I can look up the relevant code later and email it to you, if you like."

Just because they have Esq after their name, doesn't mean they actually always know what they're talking about, either.
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Old 04-14-2014, 11:26 AM
 
548 posts, read 812,859 times
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In this particular case, the landlord was wrong -- partly on some things as simple as him believing that verbal notice was adequate to be considered notification of intent to non-renew a lease; it's not here. And specifically, as mathjak noted, you would have to know the case law of how courts _interpret_ the law. The case law on some relevant issues here runs more in favor of tenants than simple reading of the statute text would make you think. You're quite right that being a lawyer had nothing to do with the underlying rights. The problem for the landlord was that his knowledge of the law didn't go much deeper than the text of the lease, parts of which would not have held up in court or were simply not covered in the lease.

Where being a lawyer helped us was that we had detailed knowledge not just of the law but how judges in this county rule on similar cases day in and day out. That's much better than simply reading the law ("a good lawyer knows the law; a great lawyer knows the judge"). And, had it come to it, we'd have been represented by guy does nothing but represent tenants against landlords 100% of his time, and had him for free as a personal favor. Our landlord would have been paying by the hour, probably for someone less specialized. That creates a real asymmetry when it comes to fighting over month or two of rent -- *much* less painful for us to fight than for the LL.

I did get too snarky and personal though, so I do apologize.

The larger point was to echo mathjak: a tennant who really knows how the law works (in real courtrooms, not just the statutes) probably has a lot of power against a LL who does not dot every i and cross every t. I'm not kidding when I say that a LL could lose some rights -- in this state at least -- merely for not delivering notice in the right manner, and certainly they'd better understand which statutory deadlines can not be changed by the text of a lease and which can. To be fair, tenants too have to follow proper procedures and rules too.
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Old 04-14-2014, 02:23 PM
 
8,781 posts, read 9,415,784 times
Reputation: 9547
Buying out of a lease
Finding a new home
Moving all of your belongings

These three things are not normal everyday or drop of the hat choices
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Old 04-14-2014, 07:13 PM
 
27,206 posts, read 46,585,533 times
Reputation: 15661
Quote:
Originally Posted by whatisthedealwith View Post
I have had to break more than a few leases in my time, and I have never had an issue. The solution? Give plenty of notice if you can and offer 2 mos rent. Done and done. I have also been a landlord and had people break my leases. Again, 2 mos rent is the going price in most circumstances.

A lot of the threads I read on here have me scared. People act like its easier to adopt a male infant in China than it is to break a lease. Nowhere have I read so many people being so hard core about the terms of a lease: how you are stuck no matter what until that lease ends. Its like you have signed in your blood and come hell or high water, you had better meet the terms of that document.

Why all this drama around breaking a lease? I am curious to hear from the LLs on here. Have you ever let anyone out of a lease early? What were your terms?
Our leases have the lease break fee of 2 month in there but often tenants think they can pay 1 month and leave their security deposit but we will not accept that since security deposit will be returned after the property is left in good condition and isn't part of lease break fee.
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Old 04-15-2014, 05:48 AM
 
Location: The Triad
34,090 posts, read 82,592,203 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bentlebee View Post
Our leases have the lease break fee of 2 month...
How long on average does it take you to have the replacement tenant?
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Old 04-15-2014, 09:25 AM
 
Location: Chandler, AZ
5,800 posts, read 6,544,719 times
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It depends on where you live as to whether or not what mathjak stated is correct; some cities & states are great for RE investors, while others are not, depending on whether the local ordinances are pro-renter or pro-tenant.
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