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Comment by alec_kendall | Hacker News Reader

I moved back home after my university moved my classes to online (mid-march). I’m now paying rent on an apartment I don’t need and have a lease for next school year that I might not use. Even if in-person classes start again, I’ll have to worry about being screwed again next spring. The only other option I could think of was subleasing but unfortunately I signed my lease in January.

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One approach is to line up prospective sublease tenants to see the apartment, and have them request showings that appear reasonable but that a large company cannot achieve (if your landlord is a large company). The idea being if they drag you to court, you simply show records that you tried to line up showings but the landlord who has the keys (since you're out of town) couldn't bother to assist in the effort. The way I approached this previously was to advertise on Craigslist with things like "first two months free!". I had people lined up to see the place and the landlord could not show-up without a weeks notice. No judge will side with the landlord in this kind of situation.

Usually breaking a lease is 1.5-2.5x a month's rent. This will definitely be cheaper than paying for an apartment you won't use, even though it sucks.

This depends on the jurisdiction and the terms of the lease. Most places in the US, there are very few ways to break a lease without a clause in the contract allowing it.

For example, in New York, if you break a lease the landlord is obligated to make a “reasonable effort” to re-rent the apartment. You are still on the hook in the interim. In the current environment, the apartment probably won’t be re-rented.

Saying anything other than "It depends on the lease" isn't really valuable, so that's what I'll respond with. It depends on the lease.

Yes, that is the problem I had with your original comment.

But the jurisdiction is also important, not just the terms of the lease.

Can you break the lease? Better to lose a month or two of rent than >= 6 months of rent.

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