[homerun7]

My fiancé and I signed a one year lease agreement for a house. There was an incident where we don't feel safe in our house because for one the house has a door that doesn't lock and certain people know where we live. So we told our landlord that we wish to terminate our lease and move out. In our lease it says the landlord can terminate when ever and says the tenants must give a 30 day notice when moving out but doesn't specify if they mean at end of lease or when ever we want. Our lease doesn't specify what penalties we will suffer if we do break the lease. My lease is literally 6 sentences long. Please help!!

[TruthSayer0122]

Give him a 30 day notice and get it notarized.

[LisaB4657]

In most states if you break the lease then you are responsible for the rent until the landlord re-rents the property or the lease term ends, whichever is earlier. If the lease does not specifically say that you have the right to terminate early then you don't have that right.

Have you asked the landlord to replace the door with one that locks? If you did and they refused to do it then you would have a good case in court for terminating your lease early. But you have to give the landlord a chance to fix things before you can just walk away.

[TruthSayer0122]

I was renting a house and gave a 30 day notice. I'm simple sharing an opinion about an experience. What's wrong with giving a notice if the land lord doesn't put up a fuss? If you are old enough to rent a home then you are old enough to shuffle through opinions on a website.

[LisaB4657]

An opinion based on prior experience is great on the relationship boards. But this is a legal board. Your opinion here might subject people to substantial money damages if they follow your advice. If you're going to give your opinion on a legal board then please give your reasoning or experience as well so the OP knows how much weight to give it while shuffling through the answers.

[TruthSayer0122]

Ok. I wasn't trying to be disrespectful or anything. I'm a new, and there are many "rules" around here.

[LisaB4657]

They aren't really "rules". It's just that we take a lot of pride in the quality of the answers we give on this site on ALL of the boards. I'm sure you've seen that on the boards where you've been answering. On the legal boards we're very careful because the consequences of bad or wrong advice can be expensive for the OP.

Thanks for offering your experience. :)

[homerun7]

What if something happened to my finance and now we don't feel safe where we live because of what happened. Certain people might want to come to our house to inflict personal harm to us. Would that make a difference?

[LisaB4657]

Unfortunately you can't break a lease for that reason. But try to work with the landlord. First speak to them about replacing the door with one that locks. If they refuse to do it then you would have a valid reason for terminating the lease. If they replace it and you still feel unsafe there then maybe the landlord will allow you to find someone to take over your lease or they may let you out of the lease in return for a payment such as a month or two of rent, or forfeiting your security deposit.

[homerun7]

What if on the lease the effective date he wrote 7/30/2010 to 7/30/2010 instead of 7/30/2011. So would that make it invalid?

[LisaB4657]

Sorry. Courts won't declare a lease invalid because of a common typo.

[homerun7]

What would it take for a lease to be invalid?

[LisaB4657]

In your case, if the landlord refuses to provide you with a door that locks then he would probably be in breach of the lease and you could get out of it.

[homerun7]

What in general could cause a lease to be invalid

[LisaB4657]

There are tons of reasons that a lease could be declared invalid. Fraud, failure of consideration, failure to have a meeting of the minds, etc. It really depends on the individual situation.