Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Illinois

My wife and I are 6 months into our 1 year apartment lease. Because of job changes, we need to move ASAP. I asked my landlord if we could get out of the lease if we found a replacement. He said yes. We took a couple over to look at it and told them the rent was $625. Then the landlord says that he decided to raise the rent to $800 for anyone taking over the rest of our lease. Therefore, since the price is so high, he is purposely keeping us from finding a replacement by super inflating the rent. He signed a one year contract with us at $625, since then we have put over $2,000 in new flooring in this apartment at our cost. Now the landlord says the place looks so good he is going to raise the rent to 800 for anybody we find to replace us. Can he legally do this? He is making it impossible for us to find a renter on purpose. We are from Illinois. Thank you. What are our options and how to we stop him from abusing this lease?


Asked on 12/12/12, 12:05 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Stephen Messutta

Consent to an assignment of lease, or sublease, must be reasonable. It is unreasonable to raise the rent under an existing contract (lease). But if you attempt to "skip" with no written evidence of that unreasonable demand, you could open yourself up to a lawsuit. About the only thing a landlord can do is require that the prospects meet some credit/background check criteria, and can still require you to be responsible if the successor defaults. The other thing you'll want to protect your self about is if you find someone to take the place over and this kind of landlord at the end of the lease says there are things wrong and blames you, you could wind up losing part of your security deposit or the successor tenant could lose and then come back at you for the loss. Get an attorney involved immediately to avoid losing any more prospects; you are trying to do the right thing and you have a landlord who is clearly taking advantage of you.

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Answered on 12/12/12, 7:35 am


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