We have a tenant renting in the OSU campus area. He has lived there for 1 year and 6 months. Suddenly his mother has informed me that her son (tenant) feels there is gang activity and that her son does not feel safe. She informed me today that he is moving out this weekend with six months left on his lease. I think the area seems safe. His car has been broken into a few times. Does he have grounds for terminating this lease? My mom lives in the lower half of this duplex and has never had problems with car vandalism and feels comfortable in the neighborhood...
Thanks,
Linda Worden

Hi Linda. Welcome to AskMeHelpDesk! I manage rental properties near OSU too. Go Schmucks!. er, I mean Go Bucks! :)

No, he has no grounds whatsoever according to Ohio landlord tenant law. You are free to charge him for the remainder of the lease and you'd be fully justified to do so.

Hello, no and I doubt this is the real reason, only the reason he gave his mom.

First areas near colleges are high crime areas for car break in. Students are just stupid for leaving lap tops 2000 dollar sterios in their car seats.
Around GA tech we had anywhere from 2 or 3 a day cars a day broken into, some were gang people coming in and stealing things, most were homeless people wondering around

You can bill them for the remainder this is not a reason.

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Originally Posted by lanneworden

We have a tenant renting in the OSU campus area. He has lived there for 1 year and 6 months. Suddenly his mother has informed me that her son (tenant) feels there is gang activity and that her son does not feel safe. She informed me today that he is moving out this weekend with six months left on his lease. I think the area seems safe. His car has been broken into a few times. Does he have grounds for terminating this lease? My mom lives in the lower half of this duplex and has never had problems with car vandalism and feels comfortable in the neighborhood...
Thanks,
Linda Worden

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The tenant signed a legal agreement and is responsible to pay the rent until the lease ends or the landlord re-rents the property (which ever comes first.) If the young man leaves, be sure to send a Security Deposit Refund Statement within 30 days telling him that the security deposit was used to pay the rent. Then attempt to re-rent the property. Once you have the property rented, gather all your expenses: advertising, utilities, gas going back and forth to show the property, repainting, cleaning etc. Then file a small claims case. As long as you do everything you normally do to rent the property, he will be held liable for the costs of the rent and the expenses up until it is re-rented or the lease ends. Remember, in Ohio, any work that the landlord does himself can not be charged to the tenant as an expense. You can charge for the paint (since the lease was broken and under normal conditions you would not be repainting in the middle of a lease) but you can not charge for your time to apply the paint. It is extremely important that you send the Security Deposit Refund Statement within 30 days... he can come back for double the amount if you don't tell him what you did with the deposit.