College dorm/apartment lease cancellation fee

[Ned J.]

Looking for opinions....

My son is supposed to be going off to college, so 4 months ago, he narrowed it down to 3 schools. My wife did a tour with him and looked at the housing for one of them. we knew it may be limited, so the plan was to start the paperwork to get the ball rolling. My plan was to not commit to anything that involved $$ until he was 100% committed to that school. Well I later came to find out that my wife basically signed a lease for him..... to a school he was not committed to.... don't get me started on that.....

So he was never committed to the school to begin with, then COVID hit and that was the final straw to decide to pass on that school. That's when I found out about the lease. My wife informs me there is a 1 month cancellation fee of $650....so I am pissed. Their deadline is 45 days before the lease takes effect. We immediately contact the PM, 75 days before the lease start date...so WAY before the "last minute"...almost double the notification deadline. TONS of time to find another tenant

We have spoken to the PM company and they are sticking to the cancellation fee....despite the extended time frame and the extenuating circumstances of COVID. I have tried to negotiate a lower fee but they have declined. They want the $650 to cancel or state that if I do not, then I will be on the hook for the full $7000 lease. There has been no $$ exchanged at all.... no deposits etc

So these are the scenarios I have laid out...

(1) Suck it up, be pissed at my wife for getting us stuck with this, pay the $650 and move on

(2) Don't pay the fee..... they take me to court to fight for it. With the huge backlog of tenant/landlord disputes coming their way, this may never see court at all or not for a LONG time

-We go to court and given the extended notification period we gave them and the extenuating circumstances of COVID, the judge says this fee is unenforceable and we win the judgement. In my opinion, this is probably what will happen IF it even makes it to court at all. 

-We go to court, I lose and owe them at minimum the cancellation fee of $650.....at worst they try to stick me with a the whole lease term...based on the fact that if I have a tenant bail early AT BEST I can win a judgement for the time the unit was vacant as I diligently tried to fill the unit... I cant let it sit and stick the tenant with the entire lease term...so at best they issue a judgement for a couple of months at most. With COVID, I'm sire the vacancy is going WAY UP and they will not fill a LOT of their units.

So I lose and owe them $$….we all know what most tenants do....winning a judgment and actually seeing the $$ is totally different. In 99% of the cases, you never see a dime, we all know that..... so I don't pay the judgement and the PM company never sees a dime. I may take a ding on my credit, but big deal.

I can see this from a landlord standpoint.... they play hard ball, try to scare me into paying it.... why not.... they have nothing to lose. If it were me, I would do the same, but if the tenant didn't pay, I would not likely take it to court since I know I will never see a dime and its not worth it...but I would bluff pretty hard to scare them into paying it..... worth a shot...

As a tenant, I know they are not likely going to do anything.... and even if they do, I may very well win.. if I lose, I don't pay and they still don't see a dime. That's what many tenants would feel and do ..... but in the back of my mind that stress of doing that would still linger with me... not something I have EVER done before

Basically I'm pissed that my wife for even put us in this situation by signing the lease to begin with... HUGE mistake...…. so paying the $650 is going to be a tough pill to swallow.

So I roll the dice like a tenant would do, or a be a good little boy and pay the cancellation fee.... I know which one my wife wants to do