If you break your lease six months before it ends and if the landlord makes no effort to look for new tenants can he sue you for lost rent?

Answer 1

It has been my experience, that if you break your lease prior to expiration of the lease term, you are in breach of contract. In NYC, unless you obtain signed and written consent from the landlord granting you permission to end the lease prematurely, he can sue for lost rent. I had a verbal agreement to end the lease early with the landlord of my first apartment in the city. I was in the process of moving out and he padlocked the premises with some of my belongings inside, and then sued me for back rent 6 months later and won. (Although I never paid based on principle. He had given me his word and then renegged. I made a naive mistake and he took advantage of me.) Never do anything with out the other party signing an explicit agreement.

Many landlords, if given a month or so notice, will waive the requirement, but it is at their convenience. If you are going into the military and you have the correct papers, the lease can be broken.

Answer 2

Yes. If you have an Apartment Association lease, below the lease term dates in fine print it states "this lease continues on a month to month basis until terminated by either party."

Very common misunderstanding. Essentially the lease auto-renews monthly. The benefit of signing a new lease is to lock in a rent special, and other perks offered by the apt community. On a month to month lease, you are expected to pay full market rent without concessions or discounts, and the property can raise your rent EVERY month (if they so choose) as long as they give you proper notice according to your contract.

My versionWhere I live:

The lease and all of its provisions is considered in force as long as the the building is occupied.

It is considered a month to month agreement based on the date of the original lease for the period not covered by the formal lease dates.

You can be sued for rent if you occupied the building even though the lease has expired.

You are only responsible for the amount laid out in the lease.

The landlord may not get more unless:

He has notified you of an increase in writing and can prove it

Or you have agreed to an increase.

Answer 3

If you breach your lease agreement, yes, the landlord can sue you for lost rent. However, in the law there is something known as mitigating your damages. This means that if something is happening to you that is creating a civil burden, you must take some actions to stop, slow, or reverse the burden.

This means that once you have left the apartment, ceased paying rent, the landlord is now in a position where he is losing money as a result of you breaking your lease. He cannot say "Well, I don't want to find a new tenant right now" and continue racking up damages. He must begin the process of re-renting the property. This could take one-two months.

So a landlord will more than likely fail to collect six months worth of lost rent. He may be entitled to one month to three months. Three months is very rare and I've only seen it in cases where their was such excessive damage by the tenant that contractors had to renovate the apartment to make it code complaint.