Ask Me Help Desk - H1B and breaking a lease in Texas

Hi, My husband and I are living in Texas on a working visa. He is allowed to work, but I am not. If he should lose his job, then by law we have to leave USA immediately. By doing this, we would be breaking our one year lease. We told our landlord this and their manager, but they were not willing to help us at all. Our lease states we have to give them 60 days notice, but we wanted only 30 days because of our situation. They would not give us that stating Fair Housing - If they do that for us, then it is not fair to others. All the previous managers were great and allowed this, but this new company will not work with us at all. We have always been good tenants and paid our rent early. What can we do? We know there is a military clause that if you are called for service then you are not penalized, why can't we get something like that? I mean we have no choice either and it is law. Secondly, our new managers treat our rent as a discount and put the market value (about $300 more) as the rate we would pay if we are to break our lease - does this seem fair? Shouldn't the penalty be based off the rent we are paying and not what market value is?

Because it is not the law. A lease is a contract. You agreed to that contract. If you break that contract you are subject to penalties. However this works both ways. Your lease specifies a rental amount. Whether its market value or not, they can't charge you more unless the lease allows for it.

In the future, if you need an early termination clause in your lease then you negotiate one up front. If the landlord won't negotiate then you go someplace else.

You speak of fairness, but is it fair to the landlord that you have to leave before the lease is up and they have to go through the expense of re-letting. Or worse have the unit be vacant for a time?

You were able to find landlords before who allowed 30 days notice, and no one forced you to rent from this one. Your situation isn't covered by Texas tenant law. 'Fair Housing' that your landlord mentioned isn't some statute; he just means fair amongst his tenants.

Military personnel are given the right to break leases for all the reasons you can imagine having to do with serving their country. If this smacks of favoritism over having to leave quickly to go home to another country, I suppose it is. Discrimination happens in all aspects of life, from charging teens high car insurance rates (even good teens with good records) to making it harder for landlords to evict the elderly (even good landlords who aren't getting paid). You say it isn't fair.. there are countless shades of fairness.

I contacted a few housing agencies and had a good conversation with someone at Fair Housing in Texas. They said they have never heard or seen any property manager having to go to court because they gave one tenant a 30 day notice and others a 60 day notice policy. They said even the lease has its place to make exceptions for certain situations such as ours. They also suggested that I contact the actual owner of the property because they may be more understanding and willing to work with us, whereas the manager may be rigid. I was told to make the request of the name and address of the owner in writing and the manager has to provide that information to me in seven days. I thought I would be a little less formal and ask them for this information by phone and the property manager told me the owner does not want to speak to anyone. I think I will take the fair housing information and provide them with a letter since it is the law and my right to have this information. Thank you all for your comments. Scott, I do agree with you about fairness works both ways, but certain situations do require different remedies. If my husband loses his job, we have to pack and leave ASAP to Canada. My landlord's assistance said "everyone in this building has a story" and gave me the example of newlyweds finding they now need more space and want a house so they want to move right away. My point is they have a choice and can cope with living in cramped quarters for an additional month. Whereas, we would be committing a federal offense if we stayed beyond our visas. Her example was very poor and this whole experience with the new property management company has been very disgusting. Their handling of tenant issues is very poor or at best very slow. Our window frame was broken and it took them several months to fix it. I have severe allergies and due to the lack of repair there was quite a bit of mold growth. It was unbearably hot in here because our air conditioner was not working right because of the broken window and our bills were way to high. Even the office staff that came up here were very uncomfortable with the heat, yet they had no issue with us living in it. This is by far the worst property management company I have come across.

You should have posted this as a response to your existing thread and not creat a new separate one... I'm going to report this to a moderator so it can be moved and merged.

Thank you smoothy for your help. I'm afraid I don't have the know-hows to post a message on forums.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shortylady

... They said they have never heard or seen any property manager having to go to court because they gave one tenant a 30 day notice and others a 60 day notice policy. ...

That particular excuse happens to be a crock. They are not exposing themselves to liability for treating others differently, but they still don't have to change the notice terms for you simply because of your situation.

They were telling you that because it was easier than saying "yes, I guess I could give you a break, but I don't want to, and therefore I won't."

Whether the management company is bad or not is not going to help you. The right questions is whether they are following the law and the terms of the lease. If they are there is nothing you can do, if they aren't then you can seek remedies.

I understand your dilemma if you have to leave the country, but that is not their problem. You were aware of this possibility when you signed the lease. Now the broken window issue might you might have used to get out of your lease, but if its been repaired and the mold removed it's a moot issue.