Hi.

I'm currently in the 8th month of a 12-month lease. Apartment is in Northern California's Bay Area.

My wife is 6 months pregnant and we need to move to a new apartment; our current one is too small, too cold, and we need an additional bathroom.

We found the ideal apartment and signed on for a 2-year lease there. This is a great place with a great school district we can see ourselves settling into for some time.

However, due to poor planning, we have not so much as informed our landlords that we will be moving.

Our current apartment's rent is between $1000 and $2000 per month; deposit is $2000.

I would like to simply pack up and move into the new place.

Considering that the remaining 3 months' rent from September to December would be greater than the deposit amount of $2000, I would actually not mind just walking out and leaving the entire balance of the $2000 amount in my landlords' hands.

My concern is whether the terms of the lease would require me to pay the difference between the deposit and the remaining 3 months' rent to keep things square?

What legal rights do I have?

What common-sense options do I have? I've had some casual suggestions about sitting down with my landlords and working out some kind of deal to possibly get another group to move into our current/old apartment quickly, so that there's no interruption in the monthly rent income, and hopefully, this will be something the landlords would be nice enough to accommodate us on.

They are an elderly couple and highly, highly conservative, English is not their first language, and they haven't proven to be eager to give us much, or any leeway on late rent or other terms.

I'm trying to find a way to move out without paying much more than the deposit without getting sued for a remaining rent balance, which I'm unsure about whether I'd owe.

Your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

You will owe them the rent and even possible keeping utilities on till they find another tenant. So as long as you pay the rent there is no problem.

You will owe the rent on the place until the landlord is able to rent it to someone else. The landlord must make a reasonable effort to re-rent it... they can't just sit on it. However, your lease probably has wording about giving notice. You normally have to tell them at least 30 days in advance that you are leaving (some leases require longer notice). So right now, they are entitled to at least a month's rent for not giving notice, plus whatever it will cost for damage that may have been done to the apartment, plus rent for however long it will take them to get another tenant in. Sometimes they can also sue you for the cost to advertise the place, etc. So this may wind up being a rather expensive impulse on your part.