Quote Quoting spartakus
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My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Illinois.
Hi everybody. I have a question and hope to get some help - any help would be really appreciated - I am from another country and lived in US only for 3 years - so, I don't know all the laws for the US. I just recently signed one year lease. I didn't plan to move out or something, but, it turned out my mother became seriously ill (she just recently had a minor stroke and constantly having high blood pressure condition, terrible headaches and difficulties in walking/moving) - she need help. We thought for some time and decided we have to leave US and go to our home country and help her - who knows how much time left for her and me together. In any case, we will have about 6-7 months left on our lease. We communicated to the landlord and told her about our situation but she doesn't want to hear anything about our difficulties and just told us we will have to pay for the rest of our lease - doesn't matter if we have a decent reason to leave the US or not. I know she will stick to her decision, but I have no ability to pay after I leave - or before - we lived from paycheck to paycheck. Could anybody give me any advice if there is an opportunity in this case to avoid paying those remaining 7 months? Any advice of handling the situation would be really appreciated.
The rule in most states of the USA is that YOU ARE responsible for the remaining seven months of the lease. BUT the rules in most places also requires landlord to "mitigate" damages, so once you notify her that you have to move, it is her responsibilty to re-rent.

HOWEVER, she is not required to rush and re-rent to any homeless unemployed person coming through the door. Some tenants under your circumstances sometimes expect landlords to re-rent the place by tommorrow.

But you are responsible for the rent till she re-rents.

The sanctity of leases goes both ways. I know some landlord whose mom suddenly got sick, and needed her apartment downstairs that just got rented out so they can move her mom in. Unfortunately, the lease that made things so inconvenient for you due to your mom's sickness made it inconvenient for the owner to throw the tenant out onto the street due to her own mom's sickness.

What some people do under these circumstances is that they advertise and find new tenants for the landlord, or find tenants and have the landlords approval to sublease. I am a landlord, and tenants of mine had done so under similar circumstances. After you SIGN A LEASE, you assumed certain responsibilites which you just cannot run away from, or there is no point in signing a lease.

Good luck to you, but unfortunately, these are the rules on leases.