QUESTION
Did I breach the lease contract and do I need to refund their deposits?
Asked on Mar 28th, 2018 on Contracts - New York
More details to this question:
I had 3 college students sign a lease for my 4 bedroom house for next school year and had agreed to actively look for a 4th tenant to share the house. One decided just two hours after signing that he wasn't returning to school for the next school year and wanted out of the lease. So I returned his deposit and told the other two that if I found a group of 4 students to rent the house instead that I would cancel their lease and refund their deposits or we could transfer their deposits and lease to a 2 bedroom apartment that I had available. Then a week later they decided that I had breached the lease contract by saying that and they wanted to be let out of the lease and have their deposits refunded immediately. Now it's alost impossible to find new student tenants for next school year because they all have their housing lined up. Do I need to refund their deposits?
2 ANSWERS
1 Award
It depends on the term of the lease.
Answered on Apr 08th, 2018 at 3:26 PM
3 tenants signed a lease obligating them to pay you rent for space. You released one of them from his obligation without the consent of the other two, making them fully responsible for the rent, instead of 2/3 responsible. In that respect, it appears that you may have breached the lease, but that does not seem to be what they are complaining about. Your offer to let them out of the lease is not a breach, unless you were affirmatively saying that you would not honor the lease even if they wanted to continue with it.
Answered on Mar 28th, 2018 at 2:33 PM