tenants moved out without notice during lease term

[Joanne Tsai]

Hello BPers, 

this property is in TX. Tenants moved out on Nov 30th, and sent an email to PM saying they moved out after purchasing a house. Their lease doesn't end till the end of April 2022, so they lived there 7 out of 12 months. There is no early termination clause in the contract, basically they are obligated to pay for the remainder of the lease. if my PM finds another tenant before April, they would have to pay rent till then and pay the placement fee. But no surprise here, they stopped paying Dec rent. PM went to check the property, and apparently tenants didn't change AC filters, and that led to a significant repair two months back. AC filters were delivered to them monthly, but they never bothered to change it though it was also in the lease.

My Question is what can I do to hold these tenants accountable for the rent and placement fee till the next tenants move in? should I just hire attorney and let them know if they don't pay accordingly to the contract, a legal action will be taken against them? Let's presume the attorney fee is not a concern, is this the best way to go about it? I believe having a contract is to be able to enforce it, or else what's the point of having a lease. it's also the fact, they never communicated they were looking to buy a home and they pretty much used this house as a hotel while they shopped for a house.

any thoughts would be deeply appreciated!