Rent on broken lease after leasing company has accepted a hold fee

[tridgely]

My jurisdiction is: Ohio, United States

Hello! I had to move for work, and so I moved out of my apartment. I turned over the keys to the leasing office on the last day of September, but signed no additional paperwork.

I had several people lined up to take over the lease, but the leasing company accepted a ''hold fee'' from another potential tenant that they found independently on Oct. 4th, and they informed my people that the apartment was no longer available.

The lease says that I am responsible for the rent until another tenant is found. The leasing office has informed me that I am responsible for the
rent until the next tenant moves in, which is supposed to be Nov. 1st, but there is no guarantee of that--the new tenant can choose to move in whenever they want at no additional penalty, and I am apparently responsible for the rent until that date.

So, my question is this: is the leasing company still able to charge me rent even though they have accepted money from another party for the same
apartment?

On the shady side, what's to stop them from finding someone to place a "hold" and then never move in at all?

Thank you for your time and help!

Tim

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Technically, the landlord hasn't double dipped. That would only happen in the event that they want you to pay for the same month which they are receiving rent from another tenant. However, the general rules is that the landlord is also responsible to "mitigate damages" which means they can't just hold open the date indefinitely. If you find another tenant to take over the apartment or a suitable one could move in but they've decided to just stick the rent to you without a tenant, that too is not acceptable. In this circumstance, however, if we're talking about a month or two, that's not a tremendous amount of time although their policy certainly doesn't sound palatable as you tell it.