Re: NJ - Landlord Get Out of Lease - Landlord Forum thread 359289

Re: NJ - Landlord Get Out of Lease by Garry on May 5, 2019 @17:09

In the legal world, you have a "meeting of the minds". You checked the prospective tenant out, and accepted her background. Then you handed a lease to the prospective tenant, and she signed it, and handed it back to you, with the reasonable expectation that you would make a copy of it, and give it to her. You requested a deposit at that time, which was freely given, and you accepted it and deposited it.

If anybody is in the wrong, you are. You should have handed a copy of the lease, with your signature on it, to her, within 24 hours. Right now, she has no obligation to pay you any rent, until you produce the lease with both signatures on it. In fact, if you gave her a receipt for the deposit, or she has a cancelled check, or a money order receipt, showing you are holding her deposit, she could take you to court, and win several times the amount of money she gave you.

The way I see it, you have 2 choices : either follow thru with her becoming a tenant of yours, (like a "good" landlord should), or see how much money you will have to pay her, above her deposit, for her to back out of the deal. Which ever way you go, chalk this up to a learning experience, and maybe check people out a little farther from now on. By the way, this is why I only do month to month leases for all my tenants. If I start seeing things about my tenants that I don't like, I can just give them a 30 day notice to move. If they don't move, I can go to court, and win, as they would be considered a "holdover" tenant.

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Re: NJ - Landlord Get Out of Lease by ERIC on May 27, 2019 @08:26	[ Reply ]

How long has it been, and how much notice are you giving her? If her move in is a month+ away, give the money back and be done with it. You do not owe her anything except the money back. Go to a MTM lease is you are concerned and she actually moves in.