Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Georgia

My husband and I signed a two year lease purchase agreement with no obligation to purchase at the end of the lease. The lease was for 10/2009-9/2011. Our terms were to pay a payment of $1650 per month, with half of the payment going towards rent, and the other half to go towards the purchase price. We work a great distance away from where we moved. Our intentions were to transfer our jobs up to the new area, but with the economy the way it is currently we decided it would be best to sit tight with the jobs that we have. So after living in the house for just about a year we decided we no longer wanted to purchase it. It was just too far for us. We informed the owner/landlord in May 2010 so that he would be able to put the house back on the market. We did this because we didn't want him to be stuck with the house at the end of the lease term. Then between the time that we decided not to purchase and a few months later we started having financial trouble due to our increasing expenses with having to travel such a great distance. So we decided that it would be in our best interest to vacate the property and move closer to our jobs. We gave him 60 day notice of our intentions with an offer to mitigate our damages by paying the rental half of our contract and utilities for several months until he could get the house sold or find new renters. He just put the house on the market/started advertising it in 8/2010. We moved out in 11/2010 with the promise that someone was moving in. Now, we have tried to communicate the entire time with the landlord about leaving and that we needed to schedule or final walk through and to talk about the security deposit. He never returned our emails. Now he is emailing us demanding rent and saying that we are not getting our deposit back because of some damage to the hardwoods. We told him we wanted to meet to talk about the rent and what we were going to do about the rest of the lease. He told us that since we refused to pay November's rent, he would start legal proceedings. Does he have a right to hold our security deposit without us doing a walk through and agreeing to the said damages? (We have pictures of every room, floor, wall, etc. and there isn't any damage) We have a copy of every email and voicemail that he left us being very unprofessional. Does his recent lack of communication give us any standing? Does his delay in putting the house on the market count as not making a fair attempt to re-rent the house? What would your recomendation to us be?


Asked on 11/30/10, 3:12 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Glen Ashman Ashman Law Office also dba Glen Ashman Attorney

My recommendation is that you made a huge mistake in breaking your lease and moving and hoping all would be fine.

You shopuld have seen a lawyer BEFORE moving to review your lease and see if you had an out, and, if not, to see if you could negotiate a settlement. When he didn't respond to your offer, and he didn't have to, that's a rejection, and you can't just violate teh lease and not expect bad consequences.

In acting as you did, you likely owe rent all the way until 9/2011 unless you luck out and see the house sold in a bad market. You also messed up BADLY in moving before doing a walk-through. He may also be able to apply the deposit towards unpaid rent.

At this point you have a major mess that may not be fixable and could be financially ruinous to you. Pay the money to see a lawyer now to review the situation.

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Answered on 12/05/10, 3:51 pm


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