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Our house closes on December 16th, with the first mortgage payment due on February 1st. We plan on doing the major move in early-to-mid January. Our current lease runs through the last day of February. The penalty for breaking our lease is pretty much equivelant to one month's rent. The upshot is that by the terms of our current lease, we will wind up needing to pay both rent and a mortgage payment in February. Now, that's fine. It's a potential cost we anticipated both when we signed our current lease, and when we made the offer on our house.
That being said, it seemed worth at least a try to negotiate with the apartment management in cutting us a break. Technically because of how the lease breaking penalty is categorized, they are not obligated to refund money to us if they lease the apartment in February. You can't charge rent twice for the same unit, but the penalty is not rent. Still, in an ideal win-win situation we would pay the full month's rent in January but move out early enough to give them enough time to turn the apartment and re-rent it for February. We don't get the double rent/mortgage payment, and the apartment complex doesn't lose cash flow. Everybody's happy.
When I initially pitched that to the apartment management, I basically got a "letter of the lease" kind of reply. Which was... disappointing. I just came back from the apartment office, where I spoke to the manager again. I stressed the win-win solution, and pointed out that if they are going to hold us to the letter of our lease then that is fine, but we will therefore hold *them* to the letter of our lease. We will leave the apartment completely empty but maintain occupancy until the end of the last day of our lease, and they will lose income during the period they need to turn the apartment. We've been here three years, they are going to need to replace the carpet and repaint. It just seemed silly and petty to me, when theoretically the whole point of a lease is to protect the property owner from losses.
In the end the apartment manager agreed with me. There are no other three bedroom units that have given notice, and there is a demand for this size unit. As soon as we give written notice, the apartment complex will be able to pre-lease the unit. We will know well before we move out whether or not we will be on the hook for anything in February. Assuming they are able to lease it (which they almost certainly will), whatever revenue comes from leasing the apartment will be offset against our cancellation fee. That will leave us with a net wash, which is exactly what we were looking for. Hooray for common sense!
That being said, it seemed worth at least a try to negotiate with the apartment management in cutting us a break. Technically because of how the lease breaking penalty is categorized, they are not obligated to refund money to us if they lease the apartment in February. You can't charge rent twice for the same unit, but the penalty is not rent. Still, in an ideal win-win situation we would pay the full month's rent in January but move out early enough to give them enough time to turn the apartment and re-rent it for February. We don't get the double rent/mortgage payment, and the apartment complex doesn't lose cash flow. Everybody's happy.
When I initially pitched that to the apartment management, I basically got a "letter of the lease" kind of reply. Which was... disappointing. I just came back from the apartment office, where I spoke to the manager again. I stressed the win-win solution, and pointed out that if they are going to hold us to the letter of our lease then that is fine, but we will therefore hold *them* to the letter of our lease. We will leave the apartment completely empty but maintain occupancy until the end of the last day of our lease, and they will lose income during the period they need to turn the apartment. We've been here three years, they are going to need to replace the carpet and repaint. It just seemed silly and petty to me, when theoretically the whole point of a lease is to protect the property owner from losses.
In the end the apartment manager agreed with me. There are no other three bedroom units that have given notice, and there is a demand for this size unit. As soon as we give written notice, the apartment complex will be able to pre-lease the unit. We will know well before we move out whether or not we will be on the hook for anything in February. Assuming they are able to lease it (which they almost certainly will), whatever revenue comes from leasing the apartment will be offset against our cancellation fee. That will leave us with a net wash, which is exactly what we were looking for. Hooray for common sense!
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