STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

gingembre1 · Kate Spade

*UPDATE*Help - getting out of a lease?

Sibeski · Dooney & Bourke

RE: Help - getting out of a lease?

member · Hermes

I'm pretty sure that a crazy neighbor isn't ground for breaking a lease. Is your name on the lease too? Maybe you could talk to your roommate and let her know that you really want to buy a place and would like to get out two months early - then maybe you could put an ad out on Craig's List looking for a new roommate for her?

I would also google California Tenant's rights and see what your options are. Good luck!

Suasoria · Chanel

How much time do you have left? Is it worth it to just pay for the remaining time and bug out?

I assume you and your roommate are both on this lease. You can speak to your landlord about finding a new tenant to take over your half - this minimizes the LL's losses, and they shouldn't have a problem with you doing this if the person passes a credit check and all that.

Otherwise I think you need a loophole, like something was wrong with the papers you signed, or a health code violation, or something along those lines. However, this can cause a bigger fight than you need.

Elle · Hermes

I think you could get out of it, but it depends on how adamant you're willing to be with the people at your apartment office.

We got out of a lease (8 months early!) partially due to a neighbor that wouldn't come home at night, but left their alarm set (in their open window!) for 4:30 am everyday. We complained again and again and they said they warned the person each time, but we literally couldn't sleep past 4:30 because of this jackhole!

They finally just got tired of dealing with us and let us out of the lease.

If you can hold out for 2 more months I would start looking for a place then. From my home-buying experiences, it could definitely take you at 6 weeks on the low end to be moving into a condo just because of all the steps there are. Even if you found a place to buy almost immediately you'd have maybe 2-3 weeks overlap on your lease, which would give you some time to paint the new place and move things over. Remember, your first mortgage payment isn't due until a month after you close, so you wouldn't have to pay rent and mortgage both at once.

Good luck!

-- Edited by Elle at 14:40, 2008-07-22

twinkle_star · Kenneth Cole

We had to break a lease on our place a few years ago. There was nothing in our lease that gave a penalty for breaking it so we contacted the landlord. They said that we had to either find new tenants to take over the remaining portion of the lease or pay a 2 month penalty. We chose the penalty as we were leaving because of a loud upstairs neighbor and didn't want to take responsibility for finding new tenants. We had a year lease and are in MA.

Assuming that you and your roommate are both on the lease, I'd contact your landlord and find out out how they'd like to handle it. How long do you have left on your lease and how difficult would it be to find someone to replace you?

ETA we told our landlord repeatedly that our upstairs neighbor was loud, he paced around his apartment until the early hours of the morning (on hardwood floors), shot his desk chair on wheels across the living room and played video games whose sound would reverberate through the floor. They did nothing except send a memo to the whole building reminding people about noise levels. They had no sympathy that this was why we had to move out. I expect that your neighbor wouldn't cut a lot of ice with them, I don't think that's something they have to disclose.

-- Edited by twinkle_star at 14:45, 2008-07-22

relrel · Marc Jacobs

Assuming that your relationship with your landlord is good and he's not a jerk, just talking to him might work. He could always decide to just cut the lease short by the two months and ask your roommate to sign a whole new lease. The landlord that I have now is super super cool (and actually, thinking about it, so was the last one that I've had) and just explaining the situation to him would clear things up. You never really know how an landlord is going to react until you talk to them!

gingembre1 · Kate Spade

Thank you everyone, you gave me a lot of really good advice.

Ellle - you make a very good point on the mortgage payment. Assuming I don't buy the place until mid-August, and all the paper signing and walk throughs take 6 weeks, and then another month before the 1st rent check... That would mean I'd only be getting out of the lease about a month early.

I'll talk to my landlord and see what I can work out.

Thanks again!!

Elle · Hermes

gingembre1 wrote:

Thank you everyone, you gave me a lot of really good advice.

Ellle - you make a very good point on the mortgage payment. Assuming I don't buy the place until mid-August, and all the paper signing and walk throughs take 6 weeks, and then another month before the 1st rent check... That would mean I'd only be getting out of the lease about a month early.

I'll talk to my landlord and see what I can work out.

Thanks again!!

No problem - I was suprised at how long it took for us (8 weeks) and we found a place we wanted almost right off the bat. One thing we didn't really think to do before we started in with all the mortgage stuff was to make sure the balance on any credit card(s) you have is low or 0. We filter alot of expenses through a Miles-Rewards CC and even though we pay the balance off monthly, the amount that was on there dinged our credit scores a bit. Maybe doing money-prep things for buying will help pass the time until you can get out?

gingembre1 · Kate Spade

Elle - Thanks for the advice. I actually just paid off my credit card in preparation, and I'm going ahead with the loan pre-approval. Hopefully I'll get to look at the first couple of properties this week!!!

Oh, and thanks again for the info on the timeline...thinking about it that way could put me all the way in to October before I would really need to break the lease, and at that point there's only a month left on the lease. Of course, that still means a few months dealing with my batsh*t crazy roommate who is, excuse my French, the biggest bitch in the world.