Hi

Last year, I signed my apartment lease over to a student but we worked out an arrangement that he would use my furniture for a year and this November I would come and move the furniture out. He has ditched rent and town. The apartment is now abandoned, I'm on the opposite coast and can not make it in time to get my furniture moved before the new tenant moves in on October 30th. My rental company will not store the furniture and the new tenant does not want to use the furniture for the month.

I can arrange for movers to pack my furniture and ship it to me, which will cost around 1,600$. I have the address of the subletter's father (he's a grad student who returned to Canada and is not responding to my emails) and I want to have a lawyer help me to recover the cost of the moving.

How do I go about this? Contact a small claims lawyer to help me? Will this cost a lot. The student is from Canada and came to college in the States, rented my apartment and now has not returned. I can contact his father but I don't know if I will get compensation for the moving cost.

All this when I'm in another state defending my dissertation this month-Argh!

Thanks for any advice.

You can sue him for the lost rent but not your cost for your furniture move. Whether he skipped or not you had to move your furniture out on or before Nov 1st and that has no bearing on the grad student. Considering his location, lack of his address and today's date it is unlikely this is worth trying to sue.

Hi

Thanks for the response. The subletter actually took over my lease that is managed through a rental company. I'm off the lease but we had a written agreement that he would use the furniture for a year and I would get it the following year at a date set between him and I (November 20).

Now that he has ditched rent and broke his lease (the company took his deposit so they are covered for his rent) I'm left with my furniture that needs to be out by Oct. 30th so they can move a new tenant in to the apartment.

I haven't lost any rent since he took the lease a year ago. But he has broken our agreement for the November 20th date (I'm in CA and can't get to the east coast before then) and is now forcing me have my furniture moved before the date we had set, which is very expensive. I have written agreement from him to be there in November.

I do have his father's information and I spoke with the father last year when he paid me the deposit I had put in to the apartment. I know how to get ahold of them. Is there anything I can do in this case?

Thanks for any follow-up advice.

If you or he had a lease though the end of November, merely pay for that month of November??

But in reality, the subletter is not responsible for furniture costs, merely the rent he would have had to pay