Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Ohio

In Ohio, if a tenant to a residential lease agreement wishes to leave early, unless the landlord agrees to let the tenant out of the lease then the normal rule is that the tenant will owe for all rents through the end of the lease term. However, the landlord is under a duty to try to find another tenant to mitigate the damages caused by the old tenant's (in this case your) actions.

It sounds like from the fact situation that you describe that your landlord was able to rerent the premises prior to the end of the lease term with you. Any money that that new tenant paid must be credited against the amounts that you would have owed through the end of the lease agreement. But if there was one month where the apartment was vacant and you did not pay rent for that period of time then the landlord would have the right to that rent.

Early lease termination clauses are clauses which actually favor the tenant, allowing the tenant to get out of the lease by paying only one or two months' rent when many many more months would normally have been owed. Thus the fact that you did not have an early termination fee does not mean that you would not be required to pay the landlord's damages. But in your case the landlord's damages were minimal and he can only charge you for the amount of time that the apartment was on rented due to your leaving early.

Very truly yours,

Eric E. Willison