Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Ohio
If I vacated an apartment, can the landlord charge me for the next month while someone else has already began living there with a new lease?
I recently subleased my apartment through my landlord. We made agreements that the new tenant would move in on July 5th, and I have a voicemail from the landlord requesting that I drop off my keys and vacate the apartment by June 30th. As requested, I provided them with my keys and left the apartment empty. I just received a bill stating:
-07/14/14 Final Water Usage $72.66
-07/14/14 Late Fee JULY 14 $60.00
-07/14/14 Monthly Rent July 14 $150.97
Now, this rent is prorated to equal about 8 days into July, in which the space was already newly occupied, and I was never given any idea that I would be charged partial rent for July. (Had I been made aware I would still need to pay partial rent for July, I would have paid it.) Therefore, how can I also be charged a late fee? Does it matter that I have a VM from the landlord stating they needed vacancy by June 30th?
1 Answer from Attorneys
In Ohio, if you move out early and the landlord suffers damages because of your breach of the agreement between the two of you, then the landlord can sue for those losses. However the landlord is under a duty to mitigate his losses. That usually takes the form of the landlord finding a new tenants to put into the rented premises. However, any rent that new tenant pays must be credited against the old tenants remaining rental obligations. The courts will not allow the landlord to collect double rent.
Probably the best way to enforce your rights in this matter would be to give the landlord written notice of your forwarding address for the return of your security deposit. If he has made charges against your security deposit for rent without crediting the rent that the new person paid than those amounts would have been wrongfully withheld from your security deposit.
Ohio revised code 5321.16 tells us that if the tenant gives the landlord written notice of his or her security deposit forwarding address and if the landlord wrongfully withhold any portion of the security deposit for more than 30 days after getting that notice, then the tenant can sue for three things: number one the wrongfully withheld portion of the security deposit, number two double damages, number three attorneys fees.
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