Am I obligated to accept an offer to settle, if a tenant is breaking a lease?

[Joseph Katz]

My tenant is under a 24-month lease agreement in Illinois. They are breaking the lease early and moving out 12 months into the lease term due to job relocation. The property has been re-listed and the tenant initially agreed to pay rent + utilities until a new tenant is found. However, now the tenant is proposing to pay a penalty (3 months of rent) and terminate the contract. Should I counter that and what is an acceptable and legal settlement amount under the circumstances? Should and can the deposit be included in the penalty as part of the settlement? What are the risks of declining the offer to settle?

 

[FarmerJ]

If it was me Id take the 3 months of rent offer and upon payment that clears ( or ask for cash) to give the tenant a letter that says they no longer have any lease obligations with you. WHY first off if you waited until you found a new tenant , what if the current one decided to not pay and make you sue them, HASSLE ! even though its winter there is no reason you could not find another tenant to replace them with in the next 6 to 8 weeks and even though youll have to pay the heat if its a Single family home you can use one of them Honeywell freeze warning sensors that can turn a lamp on and if you have a trusted neighbor maybe they can call you if they see the light come on. ( you can set the heat down to 55 and that should be enough to keep the pipes from freezing if its in a multi unit you can still turn the heat down but if your already paying the heat then maybe this would be a good time to install a conservation model thermostat that goes as low as I think 38 or 40 and wont go higher than 72 since there would be the other unit(s) heat to help. this way too you would have ample time to get the unit ready again.

 

[xylene]

You're tenant's offer is super reasonable. Your 'counter' should be that the 3 months but security is void and the tenant is additionally responsible for any damages above the deposit, seperate from the 3 month termination fee. And paid in cash.

It would be really hard to see a court finding 1/4 of the remaining time insufficient to properly mitigate your damages by re-renting, which is all you are legally entitled to.