Tenant wants to break lease 8 months early

[Sunny Wu]

I'll keep this short and simple. Tenant signed a lease starting in November and wants to break their lease on February 15th because they've purchased a house.

I do not have any lease break clause or lease break fees explicitly written in my agreement.

The standard legal procedure, as far as I understand in NC is the landlord must make reasonable effort to re-rent the property (which I will), and any vacant time till new tenants are found must be paid by previous tenants.

I've told them exactly this, but they do not want to follow the standard procedure and instead pay me to "break" away.

I told them, I've tried renting before during February, March and have found little to no leads because my community usually caters to families with kids in school etc.

I want to just follow the standard legal procedure, but they are not interested in that and want to pay me March's rent and leave. In that case, I told them to pay till May as that was the only time I was able to get applications.

Anyone have any insight here? Should I be worried that they might trash the house? What legal actions are recommended here?

I do not use a property management service to advertise and have always used Zillow to advertise, previous references, housing records, credit checks etc

[Theresa Harris]

If they are leaving mid-Feb and willing to pay 6 weeks' rent to break the lease, that is reasonable.  It also gives them a bit of a buffer if there are delays with their new place closing.  Put it in writing and have both of you sign it.