I live in San Diego in a 2 bedroom apartment with rent at around $3,200 a month and am looking to move in my with soon-to-be fiance. We've functionally lived at one of our two places for the last year, and maintaining two residences is just an absurdly high extra expense that is also causing extra headaches (we both have pets).
I've also had some issues with the building including my permitted car being towed, my car being stolen, and many other smaller headaches due to non-functional amenities in the building (including broken security gates for months, access doors broken, broken elevators, etc), and extra expenses not included in the lease we are now billed for (a $35 a month trash pickup service I neither opted into nor want but have been billed for). This all occurred following the sale of the building a month after I signed the lease.
My lease has 6 months left on it (18 month term).
The rental company's office here (Large national firm) indicated that rather than breaking the lease and paying until re-rented (up to 6 months), they'd offer an out for a little over $10,000 payable immediately (~3 months rent)
My initial impression is that taking the offer feels like something of a suckers deal. It mitigates long term risk, but I cannot imagine they would offer the buyout unless it favored them.
The building has several empty units currently (~4 2 bedrooms) and my concern is given how vindictive, petty, and confrontational they have been in interactions, that they will keep the unit open as long as possible (yes, I know this is illegal, but I'm skeptical on how enforceable it is even in California, because proving they were failing to rent or steering renters to other units would require a lot of discovery and litigation almost certain not to recoup costs).
Does anyone have any experience with this scenario that could offer insight from either direction? Should I just swallow the bitter pill and hand over the out money? Are there any other resources I should look at?
Appreciate any advice.
Breaking the lease will not result in dipping into my emergency fund, but it would be painful.
Submitted November 30, 2022 at 02:14AM by Aluroon https://ift.tt/jrKyEnX
