My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: FLORIDA
Our landlord is an attorney(retired) and a realtor. We had signed a multi-year lease to avoid having to move before my son finished high school, and 13 months remain.
We (as John/Jane Doe) were served with notice (last month) that he has not paid the mortgage since the Dec 07 payment and foreclosure will commence. He is avoiding his summons. We requested that he allow us to move next month so we can be settled when school resumes in August, and that he utilize the final month's rent he is holding, as our rent for July.
He responded by reminding us that he is an attorney and that he will sue us for the remainder of the lease period and keep our security deposit. He also said that we must continue to pay, and wait until the actual foreclosure and notice to vacate before we can move.
This surprised us since he had told us, after we signed the lease with him nearly 2 years ago, that as long as we had completed one year of the term that we could move if we wanted to with no problem since the lease was so long and things do change. Things changed all right!
Now we are his hostages, facing being forced to move abruptly but not knowing when. The whole purpose of the long lease was NOT to have to move until next summer after my son graduated!!
There is no clause in the lease for early termination either so we are now just paying rent for time we may not get and waiting to be tossed out, through no fault of our own. He already has our last months rent, but demands we keep paying. We pay on the first, but could get notice on the second, so he would keep double rent for that final month-whenever it occurs. Is there any way we can with-hold rent or move without fear of being sued? Do we have any recourse? What can we do?

