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PSA: Tenant's Can Break Leases - Don't Be Bullied by Landlords

I wanted to create an actual post to address what I consider one of the biggest misconceptions in the rental market, the tenant's obligations with a lease. I see this far too often. This applies to contract law in general also.

  1. Although you signed a lease technically committing you to pay a certain amount of money in exchange for a rental for a certain period of time, if you break the lease the landlord must make a reasonable effort to mitigate damages. In a competitive market this should be relatively quick.
  2. If the landlord refuses to re-lease or is unreasonable in their attempts to re-lease, they have violated their Duty to Mitigate damages and the court will adjust their award accordingly. Read substantially reduce the award.
  3. Once the apartment is re-leased you are off the hook for payments as the landlord cannot collect money twice for the same unit.
  4. Don't be bullied into paying and don't be afraid to sue for your deposit back. Small claims lawsuits are affordable and intentionally designed for citizens that are unrepresented to use. Your local court system likely has a well defined process for this and mine even has a handbook to guide us non-lawyer types through. I've won several small claims cases representing myself. It's not rocket science.
  5. Remember even if a landlord threatens to, or does, sue, they still must have a case. The courts are pretty clear about contract law and it doesn't simply ask, as most redditors do, "What did the contract say?" Landlords can put whatever they want in a contract, that doesn't make it legal or enforceable so don't let them tell you otherwise. In fact, they may have put something illegal in there that subjects them to penalties. An example would be pet deposits in addition to a security deposit in some places.
  6. Research how the Duty to Mitigate is applied in your area and know your facts. Every tenant should.

An example of how this plays out in other areas of contract law. Let's say you order a load of mahogany costing $10,000 for your carpentry business and sign a contract with the lumber yard for it. However, for whatever reason you decide not to accept delivery of said mahogany. The lumber yard, understably irate, just leaves the mahogany to sit and rot. After some time they sue the carpenter for full payment of the mahogany. In court the judge asks what steps the lumber yard took to resell the mahogany at a reasonable price. They took none and failed their duty to mitigate damages. Therefore, the carpenter would only be responsible for damages that could not be mitigated (such as original shipping and handling to source the mahogany), not the damages that were not mitigated (such as the cost of the mahogany itself or long term storage). This is a non-trivial difference.

submitted by /u/Common_Monk_6301
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/xk3w81/psa_tenants_can_break_leases_dont_be_bullied_by/
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