breaking a rental lease

depends on where you live. if you've really lived there that long the landlord should cut you some slack.

I guess you don't have an actual physical lease.

Let's start at the beginning. What country are you in?

1) What country are you in?
2) What state/province/whatever are you in?
3) Do you have a physical copy of your lease? If so, does it contain any provision in it regarding YOU breaking the lease (ie not the genero "Landlord can terminate the lease with 30 days notice" catch all clause to CYA the landlord)?

You have to answer those questions before anyone can help you. We recently went through this, moving out of an apt we'd only just lived in a few months due to a very bad situation with neighbors. The landlord was the one who actually suggested we move out, we agreed to honor the lease until he found new tenants, at which point he went batshit insane and broke the provisions of the lease six ways to Sunday so we stopped paying him and I basically threatened him with legal action. We got our deposit back and thankfully will never have to hear from him again, but I live in a US state that actually (surprisingly) has a very favorable tenant-landlord law so it all depends.

The fact that you've rented this place for 15+ years (and presumably haven't had any tenancy problems during this time span) should, however, make your landlord much more amenable to cutting you a deal regardless of the law, unless they're a right cunt. It's very unusual to find a tenant THAT good. Though I do have another question about something that could alter your landlord's judgement: did you mention to this person you were planning on purchasing a house and moving out? Cos they aren't going to buy that you just suddenly, one day, tripped over a "For Sale" sign and decided on whim to go in and buy. If you've told them previously you were considering doing this and they are aware that you were planning (hoping?) on ending your tenancy after this term, they will probably be nicer on you. If you're springing this on them out of the blue though, good luck if you don't live in a tenant-lenient part of the world.

If you lived there 15 years they will probably be glad to see you go, so they can jack the rent up to market value.

That's assuming she has any kind of control law there. As long as you don't they can jack it up to whatever they feel like every time you renew your lease (at least in the US). It's pretty standard to raise non-controlled apartments as much as $1000 yearly these days, if not more! But yeah, if you move out they'll probably raise it when they relist it.

if you find someone to take over the apartment (hello craigs1ist) i'm sure your landlord will just let them start a new lease versus subletting from you.

Here's a similar question on a different topic. I live in a two bedroom apartment, like the place and love the location. Planning about moving in with my girlfriend when her lease is up (roughly the same time as mine). Initial thought was for her to move in with me so we can save some money to eventually buy a place. Nope, landlord wasn't having it. Claims that my two bedroom place is "only set-up for one person" and won't allow me to have someone else move in, no matter how willing we were to resign the lease with both our names. Basically whatver we want. I reread the lease and it seems he is allowed to do it, so we've just decided to find a new place. My question is... is that common? Anyone else ever heard of a two bedroom apartment being "only fit for one"? The apartment above mine is the same exact thing and a married couple lives there. One friend suggested that maybe he just doesn't want an unmarried couple living there because they are less "stable". I can kinda see that, but wouldn't he as a lessor be better off with two people he can go after legally for rent if it goes unpaid instead of just one? Just seems really weird to me.

I R confused. Do you have two beds in your two-bedroom place? Are you living there alone now?

maybe it's an insurance thing

Sounds like he is against unmarried couples and is being devious about saying so (because that might get him into trouble?)

sounds bizarre, if there's two bedrooms how can he argue it is 'only set up for one person'... why did you ask the landlord's permission? would he be any the wiser if the gf just moved in anyway? what's the difference between her 'moving in' and 'staying the night' multiple times a week? landlords are a very strange breed aren't they.

To answer some of the questions... yeah I live here alone right now. The extra bedroom is currently an office/music storage room, but it is most definitely bedroom sized and not merely a "large closet" or something. And I didn't really ask the landlord's permission per se, just asked how we would go about resigning the lease. I guess that's what I get for being honest and going above the board on things. I'm sure she could just "stay the night" for an extended time, but I was just trying to handle it legit because I've had friends encounter problems when being not so open about things like that. Like I said though, its not a huge deal since we plan on finding a new place now - its just truly bizarre and something I've never heard before.

yep it doesn't really encourage people to be honest when they encounter these kind of pointless obstacles from their landlords does it? i have sometimes found it necessary to shamelessly lie to my landlords on rental applications (about income/occupation/number of occupants). which is ridiculous as i'm an excellent tenant - you'd think that would be the only thing they really care about. i've never heard of a landlord doing that either. but the laws are pretty different everywhere of course, maybe he has a good reason. where i live, the vast majority of share houses would be leased in one person's name. but at common law here, the 'sub-leases' to flatmates would still entitle those tenants to certain rights anyway.

My lease says no pets - the actual owners (rather than the estate agents) came over one day to fix the waterheater, saw the cat, said "cute cat", didnt mind, and left it at that.

Despite this, the agency made snotty threats at one point about getting rid of my cat due to someone complaining to the body corp about "cat smells in the stairwell". Which wasnt my cat (it never leaves the flat). I said "put that in writing, I'll do something about it" and heard nothing since. ha!

I HATE LANDLORDS

(that's all, carry on)

I wonder if april hail found the information she was looking for. It sure wasn't in Reno.

I am wondering, with the 2 bdrm situation, if the landlord would've charged a higher rent had you signed the lease with 2 people? I've heard of that happening before, in managed apartment buildings, when someone approaches the landlord as a roommate situation, they charge a higher rent than they would for a single renter. This obviously depends on the current rate of rentals (why not just hold out for a 2fer if the market is hopping, obviously) and if this is a private landlord or a managed building (ie the rate was published explicitly in the ad, instead of the "between $1 and $23,000,000,000 per month" that you see in managed building ads), but I've heard of it happening before.

That being said he's being a complete prick, I mean he's still getting the same rent regardless so why have sour grapes unless there's just a thing against unmarried couples, which is technically illegal but you can't really prove it.

In the two-bedroom situation, it seems like he is indeed attempting to not allow a non-married couple to live in his place. Depending upon the state/city you live in, he could have legal backing for this.

As far as breaking a lease, talk to the landlord. If you've got a formal lease that you've re-signed after every term, you should have something in there about moving out early. If not, just offer something to make it right for him - like paying rent until they or you find other renters. I mean, you lived there for 15 years - it can't be that bad.

Good luck and remember that a smile and offering to meet them halfway goes a long way to getting things solved in a manner that's good for you.