We just had the most costly lease break in our companies history and the dimmest tenants who clearly have watched some shows but couldn't implement how to do it the right way!
They got the keys a few days before the end of the month after paying last month rent, pro rated, non-refundable pet fee.
They already had paid a security deposit that is double the monthly rent and all of that is allowed in Florida.
Two days after getting the keys they come into our office with their pet telling us that literally everything in the property is bad from water leaking (we have now approx. 10 days of daily rain and lots of rain, mold, none working AC which makes a huge sound, etc.
We have told them they after they gave the keys back to put it in writing so we can provide it to the owner and they tell us they want the money returned to the address they currently are at. During the long letter they write their dog vomit on our office carpet...a guess kind of a bonus
They left and we go to the property to check it out and we already had send out an AC company the day before as we learned of the sound it was making and something got caught in it that caused the sound but it was only resolved after the keys were returned as these tenants denied access from the AC person to check the AC unit.
There was a very small piece that we found that was a little wet and could even be caused by an open door and was less the 1 foot by 6 inches and of course it will be fixed. Only one tiny spot that looks like it needs to be cleaned and is shown in a picture when we zoomed in and is 3 inches long and when we took a picture without zoom it is hardly visible.
We did see the property they currently are at is a way newer home and not a house from the 90's and all of a sudden taken off the market.
The tenants also claimed the showings happened when there was no day light and they never saw it clearly.
The funny part is we have a hand written letter from them telling us they want to move forward with the application as the liked so much what they saw during the 2 times the property was shown to them
Since the proof is so clear we keep the lease break fee per lease agreement equal 2 month rent and our disclaimers says clearly that we have a 30 day notice policy even for lease break and non-refundable means non-refundable.
They took the utilities out of their name and it was shut off. Today we had people fixing the minor items that were found and the tenants showed up trying to get access again to the property as they would loose so much money that they wanted to get in. The cops were called as they were making a scene and the worker had called our office. The cop saw the evidence and even walked inside and stated that their claims were not correct and the tag from the water company clearly showed the water was shut off. The cops told them what they did is trespassing as their letter stated they turned in the keys and had moved out. They were also informed if they come back the will go to jail!
That was a real life example of stupid lease break and the fastest way to loose money! Btw we charged them for cleaning up the vomit from their dog as we have proof of them laughing the trying to ignore it and we have pictures. Just an additional fee out of their money and we had all the locks changed at their expense as we didn't know if they had copies of the keys or not and we paid less then a month ago to rekey the entire property so this was an expense caused by them!
We never charge for rekey a property as it is normally an owners expense, but this is clearly different and good we did it as they might have become squatters!
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hmmm...
