How can you break your lease if your apartment and car were vandalized in the same one-week period and you don't feel safe?

Answer 1

Obviously your safety is more important than bad credit or bad rental history (both of which you may have if you simply break your lease). If you feel that your safety is being threatened, then you should leave. There are a few issues, however, that might effect your strategy regarding breaking the lease contract. Whether or not the crime is happening on the property, and whether or not the crime is committed by other tenants of your complex are two very important issues to consider. If the crime is a result of people OTHER than tenants of your complex and OUTSIDE of the property, then you will likely have a hard time breaking the lease without penalty. However, if the crime is the result of other tenants at your complex, and/or it is happening on the apartment property, then you may want to treat this like you would any repair that is a threat to health and/or safety. Basically this entails sending a CERTIFIED letter demanding that the problem be taken care of within a specified amount of time (typically we counsel people to give a 7 day deadline). If the complex does NOTHING to resolve the problem by the deadline, then the most Property Code states that you may terminate your lease and move. Check the Property Code for your state. In addition, it would be helpful if you could get together with any other tenants who may be concerned and write a letter together. As a group, you all could force a resolution much faster than a single tenant.