Tenants broke lease early and finding replacement tenants

[Steve Tom]

Hello everyone.

I have a question which need some helps. 

My current tenants are termianting the lease early. They have renewed an one year term little over three months ago, but have bought a house in late August.

In the contract, it was stated that if the lease is terminated early, tenants must either assist in finding a replacement tenant to take over the lease, or will be charged in an amount equals to one month of lease as penalty.

It has been almost a month since they have submitted their intention to terminate the lease, but we still could not find a tenant to take over the lease. I have listed the property on Zillow, and they have helped by posting on NextDoor and asking their coworkers.

Now, there is one possible prospect tenant who can take over the lease, but he won't be moving in until end of November. Therefore, he won't be paying the rent for October, and most of November.

The argument between me and the current tenants is that if I have agreed to sign on that new tenent, since he won't be able ot move in right away, this doesn't count as continuation of the lease. This is because the house will sits empty for over a month, and I won't be able to collecting any rental income. They argued that since that new tenant signs the lease, it doesn't matters when he moves in as the lease, in theory, would continues.

Who is right on this? 

[Charles Carillo]

@Steve Tom

I have never had a lease provision that stated when a tenant terminates the lease early there is a fee or they can assist with finding a new tenant. It usually is just a straight fee of 1-2 months of rent, and that is it. This is now a tough position since they assisted with finding a replacement tenant but, they are not moving right in. I am not sure what else you can do in this situation. I would change the lease for future tenants to have a straight fee of 1-2 months of rent to make this much clearer and straightforward. Is there any work you can do to the unit to command a higher rent? Maybe let them vacate, do some repairs, and updates, and put it back on the market for a higher price.