Can You Cancel A Lease Before The Start Date?

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Can You Cancel A Lease Before The Start Date?

My boyfriend just signed a new 6 month lease that begins on the 1st. We just decided to move in together but want a 2 bedroom apartment instead of a 1 bedroom. My boyfriend would like to change to month to month with his apartment until we can find another apartment. Can we get out of the new lease if he notifies the manager he wants to go month to month before the start date of the new lease? Do you know where I can find any information about this type of situation? The only information I can find is about breaking leases in the middle of the terms of the lease. Thank you for your help.

Tags: Before, Cancel, Date, Lease, Start

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 3:11 am and is filed under Break A Lease, Q & A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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7 Responses to “Can You Cancel A Lease Before The Start Date?”

TXBLKGRL says:

July 24, 2009 at 3:32 am

YES!
COCO says:

July 24, 2009 at 3:33 am

YES,
GO DO IT NOW!!! WRITE A NOTE DATE IT AND KEEP IT , JUST IN CASE THEY COME AFTER YOU.
LET THEM SIGN IT, IF THEY LET YOU RETRIEVE YOUR LEASE.
jay says:

July 24, 2009 at 4:27 am

yes but both should agree on braking the lease if the other side refuse its binding cant get out of this lease
shamieya says:

July 24, 2009 at 5:10 am

Hell no, a contract is binding if you are not a minor. The contract should have an effective date. You need to go over the contract. If the landlord lets you out it will probably be at a price.
aiki says:

July 24, 2009 at 6:05 am

I think you can get out of it..but there will be a fair amount of pain – esp if more than 3 days have passed since signing.
Perhaps you can work with them .. have them rent him a 2 bedroom when it comes available.
And 6th months is not the end of the world.
Will says:

July 24, 2009 at 6:08 am

that’s because most of those decisions are up to the property managers themselves…there are no real laws on that if the landlord says yes…he can keep your security deposit for taking the unit off the market….or he could just say no problem….and give it back it is their call…. no laws….just a a decision that has to be made by the landlord…
larry n says:

July 24, 2009 at 7:07 am

You’ve signed a contract with them. You can’t arbitrarily break it that way. Talk to them, they can *agree* to let you out of it and probably would do so if they can fill it again quickly.
You can still break the lease, they can only collect ‘reasonable’ costs from you – e.g., they can’t keep it empty for 6 months and just charge you unless they could justifiably claim they just couldn’t rent it out. Typically I’d expect them to maybe lose 1 month rent (and make you pay for said month of rent).