Tenant wants to break the lease due to medical issues.

[Elena Pech]

I sent a lease renewal letter (4 months before the start of the new lease with no rent increase). In a few days I got response from the tenant that she just discovered a serious medical issue, is on the way to the airport to start treatment in her native country, will be back in about 6 weeks to pack and move out. She wants to move out about 2 months before the end of her lease and she wants her last month and security deposit back.  If this is a real emergency situation I can allow it and start looking for a new tenant, but is it appropriate to ask for any medical papers? What is a right approach? What's the purpose to sign the lease if it can be broken just like that? What would you do?

[Randall Alan]

@Elena Pech

The purpose of the lease is to both protect you, and provide your tenant some guarantees and the rules which you will both abide by.

With that said, when it comes to breaking a lease with notice, my theory is that I don't want to be out any money.  I'm not out to make money on my tenant breaking the lease... I'm out to make sure I don't lose money because they up and leave.  

Your tenant is giving you substantial notice.  It should be pretty easy to dove-tail a new tenant to where you aren't out any money with them leaving early.  This is basically what I tell my tenants in your situation:

"We are happy to work with you regarding your medical situation.  In lieu of what the lease states (ie. responsible for up to 2 months of rent for breaking your lease) What we ask is that you let us show the apartment in the last month before you move out so that we can line up our next tenant.  If you work with us on that, we should be able to line up a new tenant very close to when you are moving out.  You will be responsible for the rent on the apartment until the time the new tenant move in... but usually this is within a matter of a week or so with you leaving.  We will deduct any vacant time from your security deposit along with any regular damages / cleaning fees that would normally apply upon your exit."

That's sort of paraphrased... but the ultimate goal is for US to have a seamless income stream.  So we work with our tenants and try to help them out to avoid the harsher penalties the lease calls for.  Ultimately it's win-win for everyone.  I've never had a tenant not help us, which in turn helps them.  For those that just ghost us, we keep the whole security deposit and just move on.

Hope it helps!

Randy