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wsuwarrior02 · Apr 6, 2007, 05:17 PM

I am from Michigan, signed a year lease for an apartment, got laid off in November, continued to pay and look for a new job. I asked if I could get out of the lease early and they said that if I had signed the relocation contract when I signed the lease, I could, but it was NEVER offered to me. They said I would have had to have asked for it when I signed the lease, but did not know such a thing existed. Is there any way to get out of the lease contract since they did not offer me the relocation contract?

ballengerb1 · Apr 6, 2007, 05:56 PM

They are not obligated to offer you anything so your lease is valid. When is the lease up? You can ask them to explain this in detail but if you walk away you will owe for any lost rent until that unit is re-rented. If they have lots of units they will not put you anywhere but the bottom of their list. You would be held responsible for any other costs associated with re-renting like advertising. If you are flat broke or near to it you might consider personal bankruptcy

excon · Apr 7, 2007, 10:27 AM

Hello wsu:

It's been my experience that when I have absolutely NO legal options left open to me, I'll invent one. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Certainly, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by doing the same thing. The objective here would be to get the landlord into a position where he would negotiate with you. Right now, it's his way or the highway.

I love sticking it in the eye of pompous jerks who try to blame ME for THEIR wrongdoing. Of course, what he's saying is, if only you were smart enough to ASK for this clause, but you weren't.

And, therein lays my invented defense. Well, it's not entirely invented. It DOES have a basis in law.

To wit: The law holds that if a person wrote a contract, and there's a question about a particular clause in that contract, more weight will be given to the person who DIDN'T write the contract. That's because the law assumes that the person who wrote the contract would write it in his favor.

Since this alleged "relocation contract" could be considered part of the original contract, a judge could rule that it SHOULD have been disclosed.

As a matter of fact, as I write this argument, I'm convincing myself of its validity. I think, you actually could convince a judge of it too. In any case, once you've made your defense, the landlord may be a bit more amenable to negotiating with you.

excon