Notice to terminate early

Farcear

I'm a student with a 12 month lease due to expire at the end of the summer. However because we are going away over the summer we will not need the property nor will we have the money to pay for it. We have paid a deposit of one months rent.

Q: Even though the lease is for 12 months can we give our landlord notice (1 month?) to terminate the contract before this (after 9 months)?

Q2: What is the story with our deposit in that case?

jhegarty

Farcear wrote:

I'm a student with a 12 month lease due to expire at the end of the summer. However because we are going away over the summer we will not need the property nor will we have the money to pay for it. We have paid a deposit of one months rent.

Q: Even though the lease is for 12 months can we give our landlord notice (1 month?) to terminate the contract before this (after 9 months)?

Q2: What is the story with our deposit in that case?

what does your lease say ?

Farcear

Don't have a copy of it on me at the moment. Even assuming it says nothing about it, is there not a general rule that you can give notice?

Victor

If it is a 12 month lease, then it would appear to be an obligation to pay for the full 12 months. That you pay month is only a convenience.

Potenitially, if you move out, the landlord can use your deposit to seek another tenant and/or cover the rent until he gets that tenant.

One way of sorting this is to arrange for a new tenant, acceptable to the landlord, to move in immediately. Its not uncommon to see students sublet to summer workers, but you are taking a risk.

BC

As it is a 12 month lease, strictly speaking the landlord can demand that you pay the full rent for the remaining months. As Victor says though, usually landlords will let you terminate the lease as long as you find someone else to move in.

Common queries like this can be found on Threshold:

http://www.threshold.ie/page.asp?menu=70&page=160