Leaving a lease early

flanagain

Hi,

I've recently found out that my job is being transferred to the Netherlands and will have to break my lease 8 months in (12 month lease).

I've heard that if I offer to find a new tenant and offer 42 days notice that I will avoid most penalties or costs. Can anybody speak to this with experience?

Also, I was wondering if a landlord can touch a deposit for reasons such as this?

Just looking for information so I can approach my landlord with this news with as much knowledge as possible.

Thanks for your help!

djimi

You need to look to reassign the lease. This means that you inform your landlord of your intention to reassign the lease (they cannot refuse this), then its up to you to find a suitable replacement to take over the remainder of the lease. All costs are beared by you, and any shortfall in the rent (ie if the new tenant is paying less than you) is your responsibility. The landlord is also entitled to use the same criteria for accepting a new tenant as they did with you; in other words they are under no obligation to accept whoever you might find and can refuse them if they dont see them to be a fit tenant.

flanagain

djimi wrote: »

You need to look to reassign the lease. This means that you inform your landlord of your intention to reassign the lease (they cannot refuse this), then its up to you to find a suitable replacement to take over the remainder of the lease. All costs are beared by you, and any shortfall in the rent (ie if the new tenant is paying less than you) is your responsibility. The landlord is also entitled to use the same criteria for accepting a new tenant as they did with you; in other words they are under no obligation to accept whoever you might find and can refuse them if they dont see them to be a fit tenant.

This was very helpful, thank you. Do you know if the law requires the landlord to be reasonable? That is, if I bring 5 different fit tenants to him and all are refused would it be acceptable for me to challenge costs?

They seem a half decent property agency but the apartment is in quite a desirable area (I'm paying out my arse for the place) so I'm afraid they might be very particular about who I bring to them.

djimi

Im not sure what the story is with them being unreasonable, but I suspect that if you feel that they are just turning away all tenants that you bring to them then you would be entitled to take a case against them with the PRTB. They are entitled to be choosy, but not to turn away everyone, especially if you bring suitable candidates.

wonski

Any half decent landlord/agency will accept suitable tenant - this is in their best interest to keep the place occupied, and definitely better option than chasing you for remaining rent. Make sure they have work references/previous landlord references and cash.
I doubt you will get 5 people interested, especially if the rent is high.
The last option is to break the lease and offer 1-2 months rent to landlord, given your circumstances they may accept this, but don't have to.

flanagain

djimi wrote: »

Im not sure what the story is with them being unreasonable, but I suspect that if you feel that they are just turning away all tenants that you bring to them then you would be entitled to take a case against them with the PRTB. They are entitled to be choosy, but not to turn away everyone, especially if you bring suitable candidates.

Great, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

flanagain

wonski wrote: »

Any half decent landlord/agency will accept suitable tenant - this is in their best interest to keep the place occupied, and definitely better option than chasing you for remaining rent. Make sure they have work references/previous landlord references and cash.
I doubt you will get 5 people interested, especially if the rent is high.
The last option is to break the lease and offer 1-2 months rent to landlord, given your circumstances they may accept this, but don't have to.

The problem is that 1-2 months rent would basically be the end of the lease and probably a lot more than taking the shortfall in rent. I'd imagine we'll probably manage to find someone at a similar rent. We found it very difficult to get a place in the area at the price we did. Thanks for the reply.

The_Conductor

flanagain wrote: »

We found it very difficult to get a place in the area at the price we did. Thanks for the reply.

This sentence alone indicates that the place was most probably let at below market rates. The landlord is entitled to a an annual review. Rents have risen in the last year. If you do get a suitable candidate for the landlord- he or she is going to have to accept an imminent rent review- which if there are only two months to run on the lease, may not interest them.

flanagain

smccarrick wrote: »

This sentence alone indicates that the place was most probably let at below market rates. The landlord is entitled to a an annual review. Rents have risen in the last year. If you do get a suitable candidate for the landlord- he or she is going to have to accept an imminent rent review- which if there are only two months to run on the lease, may not interest them.

Well, we'll see about that side of things. I'm don't want to start speculating about every possible thing that could go wrong. I really just wanted to know where I stood legally - which Wonski and DJimi did really well at explaining, so I'm happy for now. I'm going to email the letting agency as early as possible next week and let them know about the situation. They and the landlord seem to be decent people so I don't think they're going to make things excessively difficult for me. It is a fairly understandable reason to leave a lease early, after all.

Thanks for the reply, I'll keep it in mind when I'm talking to them.

Btw, I'll post an update when I sort things out so anyone searching this topic in a similar situation can see how it went down.