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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

If staying in the house until your lease ends is not an option, your best course of action is to try to assign the lease (i.e., find somebody else to live in the house and take over your rent obligations). Assuming the rent you are paying reflects fair market value, then in theory you should be able to find someone. Assuming you do, the next question is whether your lease permits assignments. If it does, and the person you bring in to take the assignment is someone the landlord cannot reasonably turn down (i.e., the person is financially responsible, is not wanted in twelve states for murder, etc.), then you have just gotten out of your lease by having it assumed by your assignee (though keep in mind that if your assignee defaults in paying the landlord the landlord can and will expect you to cure the default). Keep in mind though that often times leases that allow sublets/assignments contain provisions allowing the landlord a fee or some reimbursment for his expenses to review the qualifications of the assignee.

If your lease does not allow assignments or allows the landlord to reject your assignee for any reason (even if it is unreasonable), then I would still think you have recourse because even if you walked away, the landlord would still I think have a statutory obligation to mitigate his damages. Accordingly, you would be on the hook for (i) the differential between the rent in your lease and the fair market rental, which differential might be zero or even a negative number if your lease rent is at or below fair market value, times the number of months left in your lease term plus (ii) your old rent for such period of time it reasonably should take the landlord to rerent the premises.

So you do have some options. My take is that your landlord is simply trying to avoid being out-of-pocket on the situation, and that if you find some responsible person with the financial means to assume your lease obligations, chances are you can work something out.