Lease Termination

[jsantanella]

My jurisdiction is: New York City

I am currently leaving my apartment in NY and have notified my landlord of my intention to do so. I have taken another job that requires me to move out of State.

I live in a Co-op building in one of the sponsors units. I have reviewed my lease a number of times and there are NO provisions for lease termination. I gave notice of 75 days by e-mail and have followed up with numerous telephone calls. The landlord has notified me that if I move out I will forfeit my two month security deposit and will be responsible for paying the balance of the rent due under the lease ($9,700).

In addition, they have limited the marketing of the apartment to their own realty division and have told me that I can not list the property with any other agents. Additionally, they are asking almost $200 more a month for the unit than I am currently paying.

In the three weeks since I gave my notice they have only shown the apartment to one person.

Since the lease makes no provisions for termination, I was wondering if there is some overriding legal precedent that outlines what rights I might have that a court would consider legal and customary termination provisions of a lease. I have to believe that a court would say that since our agreement give me no clear direction for terminating the lease that a notice of 60 days and forfeiture of my security deposit is more than reasonable.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

If your lease is a year long lease (as opposed to a month by month lease which typically requires only a 30 day notice) you would be responsible for the remainder of the lease or until the unit is either sublet or another rent signs a new lease. even if you lease does not address this.

On the other hand, the landlord/management has to make an honest effort to rerent the unit; on other words, they simply cannot sit back and do nothing and expect the current renter to continue to fork over rent money until the end of the lease.

As a general rule, courts will typically give landlords 2 months to have a unit rerented (unless the tenant leaves the rental with such significant damage that it takes longer than this time period to bring it back up into rental shape).

In many cases a court would also require that notification for breaking a lease must be done in writing (not in verbal or email form) so that there can be a clear record of when management was notified of this.

Gail