And all the pony tailed dudes and flannel wearing ladies that thought they were soooo smart and clever to make flipping their whole career and lifestyle find themselves living in a van by the park, blaming everyone else for "ruining their dream" of being parasites of the American dream.
Your best bet is probably to sub-lease. Or just use it as storage for a couple months while you move in to your new place. Also, have you been living with this girl? Or will the house be the first time living together? If it's the first time, absolutely keep the apartment as an escape hideaway.
If you can afford it, do as Invol said, and keep the apartment. At the very least, live in it while you clean your new home, paint the walls in your new home, change out door knobs and electrical outlets and shit like that, because all of that is easier when people don't expect to be living in it.
We got out of our apartment building ASAP, and haven't looked back. That place is filled to the brim with COVIDy 20-somethings touching elevator buttons and congregating to go out to bars. Mobile germ orgies, is what they are. Living biological weapons.
This is the best advice in the thread. Also, document every conversation you have with them - who you talked to, when, what was it about, how did the conversation end, etc.
Our outs were a lot easier on us than those. We only had to give a month's notice under certain circumstances. It was a renter's market where we were back then with a lot of housing options. We would have gotten into a house a lot sooner than we did, but my work was pretty unstable at the time.
We've lived together since August of 2018, when we both moved to Baltimore. Just got engaged earlier this week. The storage idea makes sense, but we don't exactly have a ton of stuff. We are currently in a large (1070 sq ft) 1 bedroom. We can afford to keep the apartment, but I think we'd prefer to put that money elsewhere. We want to finish the basement in the new house, as well as add a second level to the rooftop deck. We will have a good amount of money in the bank after everything is finalized, but keeping the rent payment on top of the mortgage would likely eat into that a bit if we didn't cut down on spending in other areas of our budget. Ours isn't as bad. Lots of young but not straight out of college professionals. Quite a few people who work at Hopkins. People are pretty respectful with masks, for the most part, though you do see quite a few people without them on weekend evenings. We already dropped the ball here once. The staff here knows I can be a bit standoff-ish, so I typically send the fiance down to talk with them first. She had a conversation with them about subletting a month or so ago, and, apparently, I didn't tell her to confirm it in email (I find that very surprising, but I have no proof either). The conversation she had with them yesterday included some completely different information. As an example, the first girl told her that whoever we find to take over our lease would take on the unit as is, but the girl from yesterday told her they would actually have to come in and turnover the unit before our lease take over could move in. The staff here changes with the seasons, it seems, so it was definitely a miss on our part not to get some form of written confirmation of that first conversation.
This part of the lease might help me out with Option 2 (lady wanting to take over lease and then sublet): Thoughts?
Reasonable is subjective. This is going to entirely depend on how far they want to take it vs how far you want to take it. You can go talk to them. But they can tell you no. You can get a lawyer. And they can tell them no. You all should be able to reach a compromise. But, depending on them, you might not get it without involving an attorney. Maybe, but also maybe not. But I'd go talk to them first, then have a lawyer write a letter, then consider doing more than that.
Should be able to get a lawyer to write a letter for ~$150 or so. If the letter doesn't do it, then you decide whether you want to pursue the rest. A letter from a lawyer will carry more weight than a threat. Usually people don't respond to lawyers, they contact their lawyer, who usually asks something like "Do we want to go to court over this?" And the answer is usually no.
They might go to court over 5k. Or at least decide to pursue it further with him and see what happens. If the rental company is big enough, they probably have a firm that handles these things for a flat fee.
Yea, but that firm doesn't want to go to court, either. Step 1 is usually lunch with the other attorney, and offer $1200 or something.
The landlord’s firm would do what their client wants them to as long as it is within the scope of whatever the flat fee agreement is. If it escalates beyond that to hourly billing, then the landlord will have to decide if they want to pursue further, settle or drop it. Problem is Indy is going to have to pay an attorney to get to that point, so he has to decide how far he wants to take it too. The best bet for everybody is to find somebody to move in and keep the payments rolling in. That’s the approach Indy should take - I want to help you (landlord) find the best solution that suits us both.
That's the approach he's taking, but the landlord said no. Indy can still try to convince. But the landlord can still say no. At which point, if it becomes legal, it'll get to an offer, before it gets close to court.
Quick update: The woman who wants to take over the lease and sublet it owns a company that does this stuff (temporary or intermittent housing). She has a couple in town for medical treatment (likely at Hopkins) currently staying in a hotel. They’re here for a minimum of 6 months, and could be here as many as 12 months. The company does its own background checks as well. I’m waiting to talk to the property manager right now (second time today). He said they would need to know more about the company taking over the lease and their intentions to decide if it’s reasonable to allow. I don’t know how you get any more reasonable than a couple in town for medical treatments. The lady who owns the company lives in the area and said she’d be happy to sit down with me and the property manager early next week to get this figured out.
