This week I had one of our landlord customers call to tell me that she had just been told that her tenant was breaking their lease and vacating the rental home that he had recently leased from her. The reason the tenant gave for breaking the lease was that the landlord had been negligent by being unresponsive in resolving serious problems the tenant had been experiencing with the landlord’s house.
She proceeded to tell me that the latest problem was there was no water in the house. She took four days to respond to this problem but thought the delay was not her fault. After all, she and her husband were on a cruise and had no way of knowing that while they were enjoying their vacation their tenant had no water. Barely taking a breath she continued to rattle on about several other serious problems that had occurred at the property within the first several months of their lease agreement with her tenant. In her mind she had acted promptly on all of these complaints and felt as though the tenant was in the wrong for breaking the lease. She felt that she was well within her rights to go after the tenant for every single rental payment owed for the remainder of the lease term, and had just cause to keep the security deposit as well. The lease would have ended next year and she wanted every single rent payment from now until then.
Before she got too far along counting the rent money she was expecting to collect while her house sat vacant I made several attempts to explain the rules to her, but could not penetrate through her angry ranting. I quickly realized that once again I was dealing with a novice landlord and as I have learned over the years these landlords are not clear about tenant-landlord rules. As usual when dealing with these types of landlords I did with her as I usually do: I suggested that she contact a real estate attorney to explain her rights and responsibilities as a landlord.
At our company the landlord has a choice of services and this particular customer only contracted our company to market and lease her rental property and once we found the tenant she would handle the property management herself. She believed that she was perfectly capable of doing property management. In many cases this system works out just fine. But in this case it didn’t work out because the landlord was not on top of her game and didn’t take the responsibility seriously.
For those of you that do opt to do your own property management, you must educate yourself about the rules, your rights, and the rights of the tenant.
There are many different reasons why a tenant may have to break a lease. These include job transfers, change in martial or family status, health issues or sometimes it is because the landlord does not live up to their side of the lease agreement and does not address problems in a timely manner.
Mary I. Hank
CEO for Rent Me Florida,
"A Statewide Property Rental Service."
Advertise your rental home for FREE!
877-400-0354
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