Is there anything I can do if I my landlord refuses to let me out of the lease?

The written lease controls.

You are in a bit of a pickle, no doubt. I've helped clients get out of their lease before, but it's never easy (or cheap), and ultimately is usually only successful if you can convince the landlord to agree to terminate the lease, which happens only rarely. First, the oral agreements aren't likely going to be enough. The lease you signed almost certainly has language that prevents anything other than written modifications, and further it will have language that states, essentially, it is the deal, the whole deal, and nothing but the deal, despite what the oral agreement may have been. Getting to another result, then, is difficult as it's very hard to prove and very time intensive/lengthy to get there. That someone was fired for telling you the wrong things may help a bit, in that it may help evidence what information you relied on when signing the lease, but it ultimately isn't likely to change anything too much. As for the actual availability of subletting, most places do state that they won't allow them at all. You and the landlord can agree to modify that, of course, but often the landlord won't do it at all, or will only do it with some sort of penalty fee. Others that do allow subletting, then, almost always charge some sort of nominal fee. $500 is a bit high, I suppose, but it's not crazy-astronomical. The sexual harassment bit, then, is rather unrelated to the lease itself, and isn't directly going to help you get out of it. If you have evidence of charges and report it, or have enough evidence for a tort action (for which you should definitely contact an attorney), then you may be able to (and should, perhaps?) pursue that. Again, those aren't necessarily going to result with the termination of your lease, but if they are valid claims, you could have a bit more leverage in dealing with them, generally. You're right on on the maintenance issues. If they're stonewalling you to this point, it's likely because they only have a few maintenance requests that you submitted, etc., and regardless the result of them failing to make necessary repairs wouldn't be letting you out of the lease. At the end of the day, if your lease is for a year and you move out early and abandon the property, they have to mitigate their damages, which means that they have to rent it to someone else. So you likely won't end up getting charged for all the months remaining (or you shouldn't get charged for them all, at least.) Sometimes it helps for a tenant to retain an attorney to deal with the landlord, as landlords are generally more receptive to attorneys than they are to tenants, but then again sometimes it doesn't help at all.