Tenant mvoing out before lease ends

[Mona V.]

My tenant bought a house and moved out. She requested I end the lease early, but I told her we can start showing the house and if it rents I can terminate the lease when new tenant moves in. But she has not cleared all the stuff out, and more importantly turned off the AC in very humid weather. House needs to be painted before i can show it, and she is not allowing to paint. In this case I would just wait for her lease to end and then get work done and show the house. But since she keeps tuning off the AC, even after me telling her otherwise I feel like waiting for her lease to end might do more harm to the house with high level of humidity. I have also tried to explain her its in her interest to let us paint the house and rent asap but nothing is getting across, she basically wants something in return for us to be able to paint. She keeps saying she will allow to paint once we find a tenant, which makes no sense. She has 2 months left. Wondering how pros here would resolve this issue.

[Nikhil Mascarenhas]

Note for future - Ensure your leases have a lease break fee, 1-2 months rent that the tenant needs to pay in order to terminate their lease early. The lease termination fee needs to be paid at the time they request this, do not substitute the security deposit for this purpose.

This will ensure compensation for time, money and effort needed for a tenant turnover, including advertising and showing costs, regular repairs, utilities during vacancy etc.