Tenant Leaving Early - Standard Operating Procedure?

[Art Maydan]

What's your guys' standard procedure for tenants giving notice of leaving before their lease is up? We're not taking anyone to court if there's no damage or other significant expenses. So these 12-month leases are really sort of one-sided MTM leases with some fear factor thrown in.

The standard Chicago Association of Realtors lease allows for tenants to find their own subtenants that you qualify. I've had success with that before. But then you run into, what if they fail and now you have a vacancy. What I've done in the past is saying we'll find the tenant ourselves and let you out once we do. We can normally avoid vacancy that way, but on the off chance we don't find someone in time, that tenant might keep paying rent. If we do let them out of the lease, the LL is also out a lease-up fee. But that's negated somewhat by the move-in fees.