Cancelling a Apartment Contract

Talk to the complex manager. I've been in a similar situation--paid deposit, application fee, set move-in date, first month's rent, etc. About a week before the move in date I simply talked with the apartment manager that I was no longer interested in the apartment for personal reasons, no reason to give a life story. She was perfectly ok with it, she gets to keep my money and lease the apartment to someone else--essentially she got to double dip on application fees/deposits so it was a win/win for her. It didn't affect my credit score other than the initial hard pull during the application. It's never affected any other apartment I've ever rented either.

Perhaps I got lucky with a decent apartment manager? That particular complex had people lining up to move in so filling the vacancy wasn't an issue. If the apartment complex you're dealing can't fill vacancies relatively quickly I could understand a manager being pushy and requesting a lease termination fee, and if you failed to pay that the manager could report you to the credit bureaus which would make it harder for you to rent apartments going forward, among other things that are determined by your credit worthiness. Wouldn't hurt to have a chat with the manager though, just keep it succinct. They hear sob stories all the time and most simply don't give a shit; their bottom line is filling vacancies and collecting rent on time.

Yeah worst case i can imagine is you're on the hook until they get another tenant.

I'd tend to be up front and resolve it amicably. We are suing the absolute shit out of a tenant that broke early and our lawyer is creaming his jeans over what I thought would be peanuts.

Picasso3 said:

Yeah worst case i can imagine is you're on the hook until they get another tenant.

I'd tend to be up front and resolve it amicably. We are suing the absolute shit out of a tenant that broke early and our lawyer is creaming his jeans over what I thought would be peanuts.

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Picasso the slum lord?

We've gotten out of a lease early by posting it on CL and signing the lease over. The new renters just had to be approved by the complex. Should be no problem if it's a desirable place.

Check out all the aspies in this thread tho. Sorry to hear about the relationship. That sucks to have the excitement of a new (huge) step turn into such a headache. Hopefully the manager is less autistic than rerererolled.