Buying a house with a Tenant in it, wants to break lease

[Cali Skier]

We are buying a house and closing soon. During my final walk through, the tenant pulled me aside and said that he wanted to break the lease. I told him that the lease cannot be broken. That, just like I can't come in and write you a new lease you can't break the original lease, it comes with the house.

He made some key comments the more the conversation went on and I politely maintained that the original lease stands

• 1. He was not fully aware of what his wife was doing when they signed the original lease, but I reviewed the lease and both he and his wife signed it.
• 2.He stated that he was military and that there are stipulations other than receiving new orders to a new base that allow him to break the lease, he gave TDY as an example. I know that military can break a lease for a new assignment at a new base, and I commented that absolutely you can break the lease for being assigned new orders to a new location. That’s all I said about that, but in my mind, I did not know of any other reasons they would be allowed to break it. I thought TDY was something temporary but his home would still be here. We are researching this item.
• 3.He stated that he was prepared to take whatever legal impacts this might cause him in order to take care of his family.

I politely ended the conversation with a few statements about how I was going to have a weed company come out and spray the lawn, and left.

I thoroughly reviewed the lease again. It’s a pretty good lease, I might copy some of the items from it. It states that he can break the lease at any time under these conditions…

• 1.He forfeits all deposits
• 2.He must pay for all costs to lease the property to a new tenant (i.e. posting fees, rental signs, etc.)
• 3.He must pay full rent until its leased again
• 4.He must pay ½ months rent in an early termination fee.

If it comes up again I intend to offer that to him as an alternative.

There are about 9 months left on the lease, not sure why he would want to lose the entire deposit to go to another location an pay a new deposit and a pet deposit. It would cost him more money.

Why am I posting this? Just to get any advice on how to navigate this appropriately and keep it positive.

Thanks for any help...