In process of eviction and another tenant wants to break lease

[Tom Kaz]

Morning BP,

Im kinda in a jam right now and looking for some advice. Im currently in the process of evicting a tenant in 1 of my units who refuses to pay rent on time and keeps lying to me about EVERYTHING. This is taking place in cook county Illinois so the process could be rather long. I have served her the 5 day notice to quit and have also filed a complaint and summons. 

On the other hand i just got a call from my other tenants in the building who stated they will be closing on a house 3/27. There lease is up in June of this year and they have requested to end the lease early. I would be all for it since its pretty close to the end of their lease but im in a jam with this eviction and would be hustling to get this unit ready along with trying to get the devil out of my other unit during this eviction. I dont have an early termination clause in my lease, what would you do in my situation?

I dont want to be the bad guy, but in this current situation i want to recoup as much as i can until i have the other tenant evicted. Should i give them the option to pay 2 months worth of rent and let them slide for June? Or state that they need to pay the rent until i can get the unit filled? I have seen other posts were people have kept the security deposit as well, but it seems like a gray area (ask for 2 months rent to cover April/may and request to keep the security deposit for June/clean-up?)

Any thoughts? This is my first eviction and early lease termination... what a drag! 

Thanks, 

[Jay Hinrichs]

Originally posted by @George Skidis:

Accept their request to break the lease as an intention not to renew.

Tell the move out tenant that they are responsible for the lease agreement until it terminates. Also tell them you would like to work with them on the move out date and "IF" they help you find a new tenant that termination date is somewhat negotiable. Explain that the new tenant is in effect buying out their remaining obligation. At this point they should never object to showing the unit or other aspects of re-renting the place.

Also ask them to give you a list of the things they think need to be done before the unit is re-rented. Get permission to do those repairs while they still live there.

Do not mention the eviction to them. An eviction is when you fall back on your cash reserves and tough it out. If you have no cash reserve maybe it is time to reevaluate your cash flow position.

 if someone is in the rental home business and has no cash reserves they are just a ticking time bomb to implode.. landlording REQUIRES significant reserves to be stable .