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When Can a Military Tenant Legally Break a Lease

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  • 07-16-2017, 04:16 PM
    cwb
    When Can a Military Tenant Legally Break a Lease
    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: CA


    I currently have a military tenant staying in a rental condo that I own. The tenant is only three months into her one-year lease and just gave me her 30 days notice to vacate, due to an upcoming deployment, which is a valid reason to break the lease in accordance with the military clause addendum to the lease and the SCRA (Servicemembers Civil Relief Act).

    However, her deployment is still at least three months from now. Therefore she wants to terminate the lease at least two months before she is actually deployed. She says she'll be moving in with a friend to save money until her deployment.

    I don't feel that her desire to save money is a valid reason to abandon her lease obligation two months before her deployment. I've told her that it'll be no problem if we can find a replacement tenant before she moves out, but if we can't, she would be held responsible for any lost rent until we do find a tenant or until her actual deployment date, whichever comes first.

    I'm wondering what's the best way to handle this. Does the tenant have the right under SCRA to terminate a lease well in advance of a deployment that they are aware of? Do I have any recourse as a landlord?
  • 07-16-2017, 04:48 PM
    jk
    Re: When Can a Military Tenant Legally Break a Lease
    I don't see anything in the scra that would allow you to require the tenant to continue the lease until some date of your choosing prior to the date of deployment. It simply states the tenant must provide proper notice (how delivered). The termination date is the last day of the month following the next monthly rental payment due date. In other words, if rent is due on the first of the month her last day of tenancy would be aug 30.

    That will get you a couple extra weeks but I think that's all you're going to get.
  • 07-16-2017, 10:22 PM
    cwb
    Re: When Can a Military Tenant Legally Break a Lease
    You're right, the SCRA doesn't specifically address this issue, but isn't it reasonable to assume that the timing of a lease termination due to deployment be related to the timing of the deployment? Otherwise, it doesn't leave the landlord with much protection and allows tenants to abuse the SCRA provisions and move out anytime for reasons as long as they've been informed that they'll be deployed at some point in the future, whether it's in a month or within a year. The idea of the SCRA is to protect them from financial loss due to unforseen circumstances that require them to relocate, not to allow them to break a lease to stay with a friend and "save money", while still being paid the housing allowance. In this case, the tenant will be profiting off the government.
  • 07-17-2017, 06:45 AM
    free9man
    Re: When Can a Military Tenant Legally Break a Lease
    You are free to try and sue them to establish precedent. Good luck with that though. I would be willing to be 99.6% of judges would throw the case out as soon as the defense mentions the SCRA.
  • 07-17-2017, 07:21 AM
    jk
    Re: When Can a Military Tenant Legally Break a Lease
    Quote:

    Quoting cwb
    View Post
    You're right, the SCRA doesn't specifically address this issue, but isn't it reasonable to assume that the timing of a lease termination due to deployment be related to the timing of the deployment? Otherwise, it doesn't leave the landlord with much protection and allows tenants to abuse the SCRA provisions and move out anytime for reasons as long as they've been informed that they'll be deployed at some point in the future, whether it's in a month or within a year. The idea of the SCRA is to protect them from financial loss due to unforseen circumstances that require them to relocate, not to allow them to break a lease to stay with a friend and "save money", while still being paid the housing allowance. In this case, the tenant will be profiting off the government.

    it takes more than being told they will deploy. It requires them to have recieved dated orders.

    So what would you say if the orders were for immediate deployment? The tenant would owe you through august. Would you take their money?

    its never a perfect world but as limited as this issue is and the reason for it, maybe you should just look at it as your patriotism in practice.
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