Description

This eGuide discusses the five legal ways to walk away from a residential lease without running afoul of the landlord or the law. In plain English, it explains the ins and outs of getting out, including how to:

• get the landlord to cancel the lease
• terminate the lease by finding a new tenant
• assign the lease to someone else
• sublet

The eGuide also covers what happens if you simply walk away. It includes forms for terminating or assigning a lease, and provides a sample letter for a landlord-tenant buy-out agreement.

Table of Contents

• A. Getting the Landlord to Cancel the Lease
• B. Terminating the Lease and Providing a New Tenant
• C. Assigning Your Lease
• D. Subletting Your Home Temporarily
• E. Breaking the Lease

Forms

• Termination of Lease
• Consent to Assignment of Lease

System Requirements

Operating system: Windows- and Macintosh-compatible. The computer you use to purchase an eGuide must be the same computer you will download it to. (For example, don't purchase the eGuide using your computer at work if you intend to download it later on to your home computer; instead, wait until you're on the computer you intend to download the eGuide to and then make your purchase. After you've downloaded the file, you will be able to "transfer" it to another computer by copying it to external media or by email.) In addition, you will not be able to download this file if:

• cookies are disabled on your computer, or
• a firewall prevents you from downloading files from the Internet.

Software: Before you can use an eGuide, additional software must be installed:
To expand the ZIP archive you download after making your purchase, you'll need:

• A decompression utility such as the following, both of which can be downloaded for free:

• 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) (for Windows users).
• StuffIt Expander (http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/stuffit/expander.html) (for Macintosh). Please note: Many recently manufactured Macs have a native capability to decompress zip files. See your computer's user manual for verification of this and instructions for access.

To open, read and print an eGuide, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or greater, or another program that "reads" PDF (portable document format) files. (Download Adobe Reader for free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.)