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We are renting our condo in Florida to people who wanted a 1 year lease. They now want to move to a new place and are leaving this month with two months left on the lease. We know they're moving out, they've agreed to give us the keys, and they know we want to move back in, but we can't move in for a month. Can we keep their security deposit for the month we can't use the place?
No duty to mitigate in FL from my understanding so as long as you didn't include some strange lease provision to the contrary you can collect rent until the end of the lease or the day you move back in. You also need to look over any letters regard their leaving and make sure you aren't agreeing to end their lease by accepting possession.
Does accepting possession mean we agree to end their lease? They moved out, but they agreed to a walk through and to give us the keys. We don't have to go on with the walkthrough we have a key. We can just take over.
We haven't exchanged any letters...they havent given us notice officially.
Last edited by Mareid; 10-20-2016 at 08:03 PM..
Reason: to add a bit
Don't you have a lease termination clause in your lease? Most landlord's here in Florida have a two month penalty for breaking the lease early. That way you get your money and your unit at the same time.
I agree with AZ, unless you have that clause and they agreed to it, contact a lawyer or leave the unit empty for two months.
check your state laws . here in ny a landlord cannot have it both ways . he can not claim he is holding a tenant to the lease and keeping a security deposit or billing until re-rented and at the same time go in to the apartment and start painting , fixing or taking possession .
it is either the tenants apartment until the lease is up or you are taking back possession in which case that over rides the lease .
if you wanted to fix and paint to re-rent you would have to get a letter from the tenant authorizing you to mitigate damages by re-renting and that they will accept the fact the apartment is still in their possession until rented again to do this legally and cover your butt . .
the technicality's of lease breaking usually fall under the state's operation of law under surrender and control .
very few landlords know their state may even have laws in an indirect way that can help a tenant break a lease when a landlord screws up by not knowing .
in all the years the complex's mgmt company has been handling property they never ran in to a single person breaking a lease under the surrender and control laws until my ex-wife .
she broke her lease without penalty under the surrender and control laws . (our son is an attorney}
she notified the landlord she would be breaking her lease and expected her security back .
no one responded from the office and said no you can't do that .
so the day came , she surrendered the keys , they un-knowingly accepted them and then tried to bill her for breaking the lease a few months later . .
they made two legal blunders . they accepted her terms of surrender by accepting the keys after being notified . they also went in the day after she moved out and started painting and fixing and basically took control back .
as they found out once their lawyers got involved they blew it . they had no recourse but to refund her deposit and learn from this mistake .
they had no idea ny's operation of law had such laws . but those laws are there to prevent landlords from double dipping .
ny also did away with holding landlords responsible for mitigating since what constitutes mitigating is very vague . a sign on the lawn on a dead end street can be considered mitigating , so rather than get in to a very gray area the state finally decided to do away with that .
Last edited by mathjak107; 10-21-2016 at 04:16 AM..
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