Tenant signed lease, wants out before move-in date

[Matt John]

If a tenant signs a lease on June 15th with a move in date on July 1st, then decides 3 days later (June 18th) that she doesn't want to move in, can the landlord force her to pay anything? Rent until unit is leased out again? No holding deposit was collected. 

[JD Martin]

Possibly, if you have rejected other applicants and closed down your advertising efforts. Otherwise, if you are out nothing, your damages are zero, and you would be whole if they never showed up so you would need to return everything. 

If you didn't turn away other interested parties in order to rent to them, and you're talking about a couple of days, I would just let it be. They could turn around and move in and stiff you for the next month's rent, forcing you to evict. Not worth the aggravation unless you have real and significant costs for moving on.