Welcome to Apartment Building Trader

Question
I have a tenant on a one year lease. He has been having trouble making his rental payments and asked me to find another tenant to take the unit. I located one and my tenant did move out. He is asking for his security deposit to be returned. Unfortunately, the replacement tenant has now had a change of mind and will not take the unit. Can I withhold the deposit to pay for the remaining lease term?
Answer
Your original tenant is responsible for the entire lease term. The fact that you found another tenant does not relieve this tenant of his obligation. To the extent that your unit is vacant, your tenant will be responsible for the rent. You must use your best efforts to mitigate the losses by attempting to find another applicant.

Author
Dennis Block: Source

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Questions & Answers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.