Breaking a lease

Nickles

I'm in a situation where I need to break a lease. I have been asked by the person I was living with not to contact him. (too soon after a break up). Some of my stuff is still there as is his. I'm not taking household stuff as I don't need it anymore. I don't want to land him in it money wise nor do I want to pay rent for a property I'm not living in. I have too much respect for him for this to get messy. Do we have to meet up to discuss this or what do I do?

Mods: this may be in the wrong place. I'm not a regular boards.ie

djimi

Youre going to have to be adult about this, meet up with him and discuss your options. How long have you left on the lease? Like it or not your lease is an agreement between you and the landlord that you will pay your rent for the term of the lease, and you cannot just break this lease beause you decide it doesnt suit you to live in the house any more.

Is one of you planning on remaining living in teh house?

You will need to speak to the landlord, explain the situation and see if you can come to an arrangement. Maybe see if they will be open to the idea of allowing you find a replacement tenant to take over your lease. Depending on how long is left they may even agree to allow you break the lease early if its only a month or two. But they are under no obligation to do anything; they are within their rights to hold you to the agreed terms of the lease.

Your best option might be for one of you to remain in the house and see if you can find someone else to stay there until the end of the lease. The landloard would almost certainly be more open to this solution rather than both of you leaving and breaking the lease.

ProudDUB

Not enough info there to give a useful answer.

What kind of lease do you have, is it a fixed term lease or a part 4 tenancy? Whose name is on the lease? Did you pay a deposit? How long have you lived there? How much longer is on the lease? Is the other party still living there or has he moved out too? Have you contacted your landlord yet?

If you were living with someone, and you were jointly responsible for the deposit & the rent, you are jointly responsible to return the property to the landlord in the same condition that you were given it. How on earth do you plan on accomplishing that without communicating with the other party? His telling you not to contact him is ridiculous. Break ups suck, but he is a party to a business transaction that needs to be sorted out. He can't just stick his head in the sand and tell the world to go away.

If you are breaking a fixed term lease, your landlord is entitled to hold onto your deposit to compensate him for his loss of rental income. He can also come after you for unpaid rent but probably won't. If you find the landlord an alternative tenant for the property and he is not out any rental income, you should be able to get your deposit back. But again, this may be hard to do unless you have the cooperation of the other party involved.

sarkozy

Hmm, I was an observer in a similar situation. A couple in a rented house broke up, he remained there and she packed up and left leaving him to do much of the clean-up work. I sympathised with the situation, but I was involved in decision-making around the deposit question.

We carefully considered the situation and agreed that there was some beyond normal wear and tear and unsatisfactory cleaning which were costed and deducted from their deposit. I believe she tried to stick the deposit expenses on him, but it was tough to feel like we had to say, 'that's their business, not ours'.

So, in the end, he moved out leaving unwanted memories (possessions) behind, he paid for his/their fair share of the repairs, then the landlord repainted and cleaned the place for the new tenants.

I don't know if that's some helpful perspective.