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well if the land lord has you under contract for say a year and you leave the landlord can hold you to the full term....now whether you find someone to take over your lease and sublett to them or the landlord does the fact is its the landlords choice whether to keep you on the hook and sublet on your behalf or let you off the hook and give the tenant their own lease... its still your apartment .. some times the landlord will still hold you until the lease end and if the next tenent dosnt stay or workout its still your problem.....
if the landlord holds you to the lease some states like new york say he has to try to mitigate the damages but the courts stopped short of saying exactly what that means... if he helps you sublet then you are entiled to any of the rent over what you are paying the landlord..... ...
typically where landlords blow it is the tenant notifys the landlord they are moving before the lease end.... the tenent moves out..... the landlord rushes in to paint and make the apartment ready to rent and then the landlord bills the tenant for the rest of the rent or until a tenent is found....
problem is by not discussing it with the tenant the landlord is deemed to have taken possession back from the tenant by going in and fixing up and renovating while claiming its still the tenants apartment.. he cant do that... he either has to take control, or he has to stick to his guns and say its still the tenants apartment... he cant just take control and do things that benefit him at this point
if the tenent is told hes being held to the lease before the landlord goes in the tenant can ask the landlord to help him sublett...
how do i know all this???????? we have a fairly large family owned real estate business in nyc and although we are winding down the business now we had as much as 13 million dollars in residential apatments in the city and have dealt with these issues many times......
Last edited by mathjak107; 03-26-2009 at 04:35 PM..
heres how i would handle it... when notified they were breaking their lease i would respond and let them know they would be held to the lease until they found someone to sublet to for the remainder of the lease and they are responsible for any rent or damages that their tenant incurrs that isnt paid ... or if im comfortable with that person and the background check id do on that person they want to sublet to then i may entertain giving them a lease direct and letting the tenant off the hook. ..
i let them know id be happy to help advertise the apartment for them and even repair and paint if they will pay all associated cost i incurr on their behalf...
then and only then would i go into the tenants apartment and do any work.....
I'm sure you are well versed in NYC rental law. I'm sorry that you feel that a small town gal from Idaho who has only managed 9 million dollars in property for the last two decades isn't up to your level of knowledge.
Unfortunately, you seem to be having trouble with the concept that there are 49 other states, and they all have different laws.
What you are saying is flat out, absolutely NOT the case up here in podunk Idaho. Neither of the topics you touched on are true here. There is no obligation for the landlord to allow a Sublease. Liablility does not end because the LL accepts keys, and the LL is absolutely allowed to get the unit back to rentable condition before releasing liability on a tenant who broke a lease.
It's very nice that you know New York law so well, but the OP isn't in New York, so you really aren't helping by insisting you know the law in his area.
i never said it applyed anywhere else, i merely said in the origional post here in ny.... quite frankly though id be quite surprised if other states were entirely different,,... basically a contract is a contract .... its up to the courts in that state to determine to what extent and how that contract will be carried out or broken
If your lease has a clause that says you can break it with 30 days notice then you don't owe him. BUT if it doesn't then yes you need to continue to pay the rent while at least in NJ he MUST make every reasonable attempt to re-rent the apartment. Once a new tenant arrives, in NJ he CANNOT charge you for the rent anymore.
here in new york a little known ploy to break a lease is that a landlord cant double dip, he cant claim hes holding you to the lease and then accept the keys back or repair and paint the apartment,..
one ploy is to send the landlord a certified letter a month or so in advance that on such and such a date you will be surrendering the keys and moving out. you give them instructions for returning your security deposit as well....
un-known to most all managing agents and landlords is that word surrender has powerful legal meaning... if they dont respond and say no your not and the day comes and they accept the keys back then under most states operational law they have accepted your terms of surrender
my ex wife had to break a lease because she could not afford the apartment..
my son who is an attorney advised her to do just that... they never responded and the day came and she dropped the keys off and they took them..
2 months later a bill comes for the balance of the lease... my son told them how they blew it. they thought he was sooooooo wrong as it sounded rediculous.
well they checked with their attorneys and found out he was sooooo right... they had no choice but to drop the case.
they cant come in and paint or fix either, if they do its also deemed they have taken possesian back..... alot of times they will hold you to the lease, sue you and try to re-rent...
they can try to re-rent on your behalf but if they do and get more money you get the extra dough not them but they need your permission to try to sublet and mitigate the damages first...
see , i never said it may be that way in anyother state, i wouldnt know if it is or it isnt, but the origional poster should definatley look into it to see whats the deal in their state
If your lease has a clause that says you can break it with 30 days notice then you don't owe him. BUT if it doesn't then yes you need to continue to pay the rent while at least in NJ he MUST make every reasonable attempt to re-rent the apartment. Once a new tenant arrives, in NJ he CANNOT charge you for the rent anymore.
i dont know anything about nj but im curious if he can hold you to the lease and allow you to only sublet if he decides hes not breaking your lease
looks like its not just new york,,, one thing about legal issues is everyone has there idea about how things work or should be and man once you get into a legal entanglement with someone who knows how to play the game you realize thats why we have lawyers... the game changes big time in courts..... things we belived our entire lives to be true and work a certain way go right out the window when it comes to laws and interpretation.. i can tell you the management office was dumb founded when they learned from their attorneys that merely accepting those keys back and not saying they werent taking possesion back for the last 2 months prior to receiving the keys back made them not entitled to a cent anymore...... no one could believe that was true
As any lawyer will tell you, state laws vary in terms of contract law. And that law will trump basic contract law. I don't see anything in the articles you cited about state specific contract law. Trust me, I've been involved in the court system with and without attorneys for more landlord/tenant cases that I can count. The law is the law and because these are fairly common circumstances, they're almost always handled the same way. I have several problems with your theories about the law in New York, but I'm not even going to go there since it's irrelavant. The problem I have is you're giving the OP advice like you know what you're talking about for his state. That's fantastic that you have personal experience with a real estate company in NYC, but do you have experience elsewhere? It may seem normal to you if that's all you know, but trust me, property management in NYC is a completely different ballgame than the rest of the country. Your interpretation of the law (if true) is the exception, I can assure you of that. How do I know? I'm a member of the National Apartment Association, my local apartment association, have my Certified Apartment Manager designation from the NAA, have completed countless hours of property management continuing education courses, completed my state's real estate broker course, and above all, spent the last 7 years managing 30+ million dollar apartment communities in the Southeast. I'm educated enough to know the gist of landlord/tenant law. Unless you know the laws of all the states, then you shouldn't tell the OP what to do. If you want to describe how it would be handled in your area, that's one thing, but you're talking like you're the be all end all to landlord/tenant law and I think that's what has ruffled some folks feathers.
Last edited by Babytarheelz; 03-26-2009 at 05:55 PM..
Reason: typo
I don't know; my gut would say no. What I can tell you is that I did have a lease which did not allow me to sublet under any circumstances, which made a lot of sense to me actually. As a property owner I'd want to maintain control over who was residing on the rental property. By allowing subletting you lose some of that control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107
i dont know anything about nj but im curious if he can hold you to the lease and allow you to only sublet if he decides hes not breaking your lease
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