What are my options if my landlord won’t let me assign or sublease? What can happen if I do so anyway and she finds out?

Your landlord has a duty to mitigate her damages. That means that if you vacate the premises and stop paying the rent, she must use reasonable good faith efforts to re-rent the premises as fast as she can for as much as she can. That also means that if you have already offered you a tenant with a job, credit and history as a tenant, as good as your own or better, or as good as her other tenants or better, then you have proof that she could have rented the place to that person and thereby mitigated her damages. Put your offer of the new tenant and the new tenant's contact inforation in writing. When you go to trial, it's hard for the judge to sort out what you claim you said and the landlord said, and what the landlord said you said and she said. Letters help. Also, when you send a letter on paper with a signature, the landlord will know that you are creating evidence for trial. You can scan it and email it to get it there faster. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need. Dana Sack