State Law for Letting Landlord Know You Are Moving Out

1. If You Have a Lease

If y'all have a written lease and you want to move out permanently, there are two questions you need to enquire yourself:

• When is my lease supposed to cease?
• When practise I want to movement out?

a. Moving at the Finish of Your Lease

For a written lease to be valid, information technology must include the appointment on which your tenancy is to cease. If it does not contain an end engagement, it is a written tenancy at will agreement and you should read the next section in this chapter, chosen If You Do Not Have a Lease.

If y'all have a valid lease and you program to leave on the date that your charter ends, look in the get-go 10 or 15 lines of the lease to come across whether your charter automatically extends itself. If it does, it volition say something like:

. . . this lease will go on in full force and consequence after the higher up term from year to yr until either the Lessor (landlord) or the Lessee (tenant) on or before the commencement 24-hour interval of the month in whatever yr, gives to the other written notice of intention to end this lease.

If your charter automatically extends, you take what is called a "cocky-extending lease," and y'all must give your landlord notice that you are leaving. Your notice must be in writing, and y'all must deliver it to the landlord by a sure date. Cheque your charter to run across when and how y'all need to requite the landlord this observe. Usually, 1 month's notice is required. If yous fail to properly notify your landlord that you are leaving, your lease will exist extended for another term and your landlord may be able to hold you responsible for paying rent after yous motility out.

If your lease does not automatically extend itself, then your tenancy simply ends on the last day in the lease. In this situation, you do not have to give your landlord detect that you are leaving. For more information about self-extending lease clauses, run across Chapter four: What Kind of Tenancy Do You lot Accept - How Long Is My Lease Valid.

b. Moving Before the End of Your Lease

If you want to intermission your charter and move out before it ends, the state of affairs is somewhat tougher. By signing a lease, you agree to pay the landlord rent for withal long your charter is.

Your lease may also have a clause that says that if yous leave before the finish of your lease, you are responsible for the rent subsequently you lot go out through the end of the lease term. Despite this clause, in that location are a number of ways you may be able to end your lease early on and reduce the amount of rent yous may owe if your landlord tries to sue you for all the coin due on the lease when you move out. Each of the methods of catastrophe your lease early listed below involve different risks in terms of your responsibility for hire. You should carefully consider the risks when deciding whether to exit your flat before the finish of your lease.

1. The Landlord Agrees to Your Moving Out

   Yous can contact the landlord or her property director and tell her that yous must move out before the stop of your charter. Suggest a specific date. The landlord may agree that you tin can leave early. If she does agree, immediately send her a written notice (electronic mail, text or letter of the alphabet) saying that y'all are "surrendering"¹ the flat by _____(state the date) and ask for written "acceptance of the surrender." You must use these specific words. And so brand sure the landlord sends you dorsum something in writing (electronic mail, text or letter) saying that she has agreed to your leaving by a specific appointment. One time this date has arrived and you lot have moved all of your belongings out of your apartment, you must return the keys to your landlord. So long as y'all have received the letter from your landlord accepting early give up of your apartment and returned the keys on or earlier the agreed upon appointment, your landlord cannot agree you lot responsible for the rent after y'all leave.²

   You should be conscientious almost just accepting a verbal agreement with your landlord that it'southward okay to get out early, even if you lot and your landlord are on skillful terms. If she volition not send back a signed copy of the letter saying she agrees that yous can go out early, you should consider whether you want to assume the risk that she may later decide to try to hold you responsible for the rent later you motion out.

2. The Landlord Refuses to Make Repairs

   If there are major Sanitary Code violations or seriously defective atmospheric condition in your flat, y'all take notified the landlord and a city or town housing inspector of the violations or conditions, and the landlord has not repaired them promptly, y'all tin legally end (void) the charter. Nonetheless, before you can legally end (void) the charter^three , y'all must take the specific steps outlined below:

• You must take a local housing inspector audit the apartment and write upwards a report documenting the conditions that violate the land Sanitary Code.⁴ For data about how to go a housing inspection, meet Chapter 8: Getting Repairs Made.

  The landlord must receive the inspection report from the housing inspector and take an opportunity to consummate the repairs before you lot tin can break the lease. While the housing inspector is supposed to serve a copy of the study on your landlord, information technology is a good idea for y'all to send a copy of the report to your landlord so she can't afterwards say that she didn't go it. Include with the report a letter detailing any prior requests that you made to the landlord to make repairs and how long the problems cited by the inspector have lasted. After receiving the inspection written report, the landlord must begin all repairs equally required by the inspector's report or contract with a tertiary party to have repairs made inside a specified menstruum of fourth dimension.⁵

• If the landlord has not repaired or substantially completed all necessary repairs within the time required, you can choose to break your lease and move out of your apartment, only you lot must motion out "within a reasonable time." It is unclear what is "a reasonable time"⁶ in which to motility out because of poor atmospheric condition.
• Although it is not required, before you lot movement out, you lot should also send your landlord a letter giving her written notice of the reason why you are moving out. Below is a sample letter.

  Dear Landlord,

  This is to inform you that considering of the multiple Sanitary Code violations existing in this apartment that you have failed to repair, we tin no longer live in this apartment and are moving out on _____________ (engagement).

  You lot had find of these violations through our letters to you and the housing inspection report of ______________ (appointment). Equally you have failed to make any repairs, you have breached your warranty of habitability and we hereby choose to void the tenancy agreement between the states.

  You should also take pictures of the problems in your flat so if your landlord later decides to sue you for breaking your lease, you will have boosted proof that it was the landlord who broke the lease past not providing a rubber and sanitary apartment.

3. You Assign Your Lease

Yous may be able to plough over (assign) your charter to another person. When you assign a charter, you move out permanently and a new tenant moves in for the rest of your lease term. This person is referred to every bit the "assignee." Both you and the new tenant will be responsible to the landlord for the status of the apartment and the rent. Yet, you should cheque your lease earlier deciding whether to assign, because many leases prohibit tenants from assigning their charter, or allow assigning just with the landlord's permission. For more data about assigning your charter, see the department in this chapter called Assigning Your Lease.

4. You Leave

You can go out and run whatsoever risks that might follow. The risks are that the landlord will probably go on your security deposit. She may too endeavour to sue you or hold you responsible for the rent until another tenant moves in. Merely while some landlords may be willing to let you out of the lease, others may non. However, the law requires the landlord to brand a reasonable effort to discover another tenant.⁷ If, afterwards notifying the landlord in writing that you volition be leaving, she is not willing to let you lot out of the lease, you can take a number of steps to try to protect yourself:

• Letter to Landlord: Write the landlord a letter telling her she cannot but need that you pay the balance of the rent for the term of the charter, and that nether the police she must make a reasonable effort to observe a new tenant to reduce (mitigate) her amercement.
• Assistance Find New Tenant: You can endeavour to detect someone (either a person you know or a stranger) willing to take over your lease. If y'all don't know anyone who would be interested in moving into your flat, y'all can advertise the apartment yourself. If you do, draw the apartment and the electric current rent you are paying. If people contact you, show them the apartment and explain to them that you are moving out and are not certain whether the landlord volition increase the rent. If they are interested in renting the flat, give them the landlord's proper noun and phone number and tell them to contact the landlord direct. You should besides send your landlord a written advice (email, text, letter) with this person'due south proper noun and contact data and tell your landlord that you have found someone who is willing to move into the apartment. You lot may too desire to include a reminder to your landlord of her responsibility to find someone to move into the unit to mitigate (reduce) her loss of rent. Keep a copy of all written communications in case the landlord tries to sue you lot for the rest of the rent under the lease.
• Offering Banker's Fee: You could offer to pay a banker'south fee to help the landlord notice a new tenant.

five. You Stop Paying Rent

You lot could force the landlord to finish your tenancy. If you stop paying the rent, you may soon receive a xiv-24-hour interval notice to quit for non-payment of rent. When this occurs, the landlord has terminated your tenancy and you may exit.⁸ This strategy, while it commonly works, requires farthermost caution. In Massachusetts, equally in other parts of the state, there is an increasing employ amid landlords of calculator services that track the records and history of tenants, much like a credit reporting service. If y'all accept been evicted for non-payment of rent, this data may go into a landlord reporting service reckoner organisation and may create problems when you attempt to notice your adjacent apartment. Additionally, if y'all take a Section eight voucher or some other type of subsidy, you may put your subsidy at risk if you but end paying your rent.

2. If You Do Not Have a Charter

If you exercise not have a charter and are occupying the apartment with the permission of your landlord, then yous are a tenant at will.⁹ For more information about tenants at volition, see Affiliate four: What Kind of Tenancy Do You Have. As a tenant at will, there are basically iii ways you tin legally end your tenancy.

a. Give Your Landlord Proper Notice

The police force requires tenants at will to requite landlords written observe that they are moving out at least one full rental period or 30 days (whichever is longer) before moving.¹⁰ This time period starts to run from the time your landlord receives the detect, non from the time you ship it.¹¹ Thus, if you pay your rent on the get-go of every month and y'all want to leave past April 1, your landlord must receive your notice earlier the end of Feb (February 28 is OK, merely March 1 is not.)

You can either mail a re-create of the notice to your landlord or requite it to her direct. Brand sure that if y'all mail the notice, you lot get out enough time for her to get the notice before the deadline. If you lot want to leave past April 1, mail your notice at least a calendar week before February 28th then that she receives it on or before Feb 28th. Exist sure to relieve a re-create for yourself.

If you choose to postal service the notice, it might besides a good idea to deliver a copy of the observe yourself besides. Otherwise, there could be a question of whether the landlord received the notice.¹² If yous are worried that your landlord may say she did non become it, send the notice by certified mail, render receipt requested, and regular mail, and keep a re-create for yourself. If yous only send the notice certified mail and the landlord refuses to sign for it, the notice volition not be effective to terminate your tenancy. Send it by regular mail as well.

Never attempt to verbally end (terminate) your tenancy. Your notice must be in writing.¹³ To follow the police force, y'all should employ the following words in your notice:

You are hereby notified that I shall quit and deliver up at the end of the adjacent month of my tenancy on __________ [put the last day of the rental period], starting time after this notice, the premises now held by me equally your tenant, namely ________________ [your name and address of apartment].¹⁴

_________________________________

[Your Signature]

If you give proper observe, y'all may move out with no further obligations to a landlord. If you do not cease your tenancy properly, you may be held responsible for additional rent.

Note: If you have to leave in the middle of the calendar month, you cannot merely give notice that y'all plan to movement out in the middle of a rental period and pay half a month's rent.

b. You and Your Landlord Can Agree to Cease the Tenancy

During an Emergency

If yous cannot requite the landlord proper find that yous volition be moving out—for example, if y'all take to move because of a family emergency—you tin always ask the landlord if she would agree to finish the tenancy. A landlord and tenant can, at any time and for whatever reason, reach an agreement to end a tenancy.^fifteen Get this agreement in writing. If yous recall the landlord will not hold to this in writing, but may hold to it verbally, have someone become with yous to witness what the landlord says. You can then send the landlord a letter "thanking" her for letting you lot go out without giving the right amount of notice, which will assistance you document your agreement.

Alee of Time

A tenant and landlord may mutually agree alee of time on how much find you, as a tenant, must give the landlord before moving out.¹⁶ For example, you and your landlord may agree that you will give her xv days notice. Once again, information technology'south a good idea to put this in writing.

c. You Can "Surrender" Your Apartment

A tenant at will can cease her tenancy by "surrendering" the apartment. This happens when you do not take plenty fourth dimension to requite proper notice and the landlord will not agree to end the tenancy when you need to terminate it. In this instance, you may legally leave if the landlord accepts what is called "give up" of the tenancy. A landlord accepts the surrender if she accepts the fact that you are leaving or accept left.¹⁷ Ways to prove that a landlord has accepted your surrender might include the post-obit:

• Your landlord accepts your keys. (Bring a witness when you return the keys.)
• Your landlord advertises the apartment for rent, makes repairs, or really rents it. (Y'all might even try to find replacement tenants and give these names to the landlord so that she can take steps to fill the apartment. See the department in this chapter called Yous Simply Leave.)

three. Risks of Leaving without Proper Notice

If you leave your apartment without giving the required notice under your tenancy at will agreement (at least one month, unless you lot've agreed to a unlike amount of notice) or if practise not return the keys on or before the date you said you were leaving, a landlord may effort to brand you pay rent for the next rental period (usually the next month).¹⁸ Unless yous voluntarily concord to pay the landlord this money, she will have to sue you to get information technology. Depending on how much money is involved, a landlord may decide it'southward too much problem to sue y'all. And, as stated in the previous section of this affiliate, the law requires the landlord to find replacement tenants as shortly as possible.

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Source: https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing/lt1-chapter-11-your-responsibilities

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