Getting out of a lease

[cugk02]

What is the name of your state? North Carolina

My girlfriend lives in a college community with multiple buildings with 4 bed and 4 bathroom apartments. She had a fight with one of her roommates and moved out in October at which time she was told she could not break the lease and she had to sublease the apartment to someone. She put her name on the list of people to be contacted for subleasing because there were no empty apartments in the complex. Now the place has open rooms and is trying to lease through the office, so obviously someone got out of the lease without finding someone. The real issue is that two of the other girls that live in her apartment are moving out into a hous. They put there names on the list of people to have apartments subleased 2 weeks ago, and have already gotten people to move in. Is there any way that she can get out of her lease, and possibly get back some of the rent that she has paid over the past 5 months?

 

[dduglass]

If you have no legally valid reason for breaking the lease, the landlord is still obligated by law to minimize the impact of your breach by trying to re-lease the unit. The legal term is "mitigating damages." For example, you leave in month 4 of a year lease. The landlord tries to re-rent it, and finds someone to pay the same rate starting month 6. You owe the rest of month 4 and all of month 5, but not thereafter. The landlord cannot collect double rents. In the alternative, the landlord finds someone who will rent your $1000 apartment for $900 starting the day after you leave. You would then owe the $100 difference for the remainder of your lease term.

In contrast, if the landlord does not try to re-rent the unit, and you can show that, the landlord gets nothing from you, because of the failure to mitigate damages. In between is the gray area, where the landlord makes minimal efforts to re-rent, or rents at a higher rate than you paid. The judge would have to determine whether this was a mitigation of damages.
As an additional precaution, you can sub-lease the unit to someone else. This can create problems, because the management might prohibit sub-leasing. However, since they have the obligation to mitigate damages, how do they justify evicting a paying sub-tenant? They get the empty unit, but can't claim that they've minimized their losses as to your lease term rent. They shoot themselves in the foot. Sometimes, the subtenant ends up taking over the place, and signing a new lease.
If you have no legally valid reason to terminate the lease, your best approach is to put the fact of your leaving in writing to the landlord, and keeping a copy, mentioning that your unit will be available for viewing by prospective tenants under Civil Code 1954 [reasonable advance (like 24 hrs) notice, business hours only]. You can also put your own ad in the Recycler or equivalent [freebie ads], and have the prospective tenants call you. Write down their names, work and home numbers, and then forward them on to the landlord as replacements. If the landlord claims they couldn't find anyone, you have a list to contest that, and show their failure to mitigate damages.