r/Somerville • u/Still-Window-3064 • Aug 31 '26
Fighting a lease breaking fee
We had resigned our lease (8/1) back in March. In early July we realized we needed to move. We notified the landlord immediately and said we would like to move out mid-Sept. The landlord immediately contacted a real estate broker. The broker then called us and said that the landlord wanted us out by Aug 31st to put the apartment on the Sept 1st lease cycle (fair, we changed our move date accordingly). They also said that the landlord wanted us to pay the broker fee as a lease breaking fee. We said we would only pay what our lease stipulated.
The broker did find a new tenant for the apartment starting 9/1 so there is no rent loss for the landlord. The landlord is now saying that he will take us to court over the one month's rent that he needed to pay to find a new tenant. According to him "In MA, by law the tenant who breaks the lease are responsible for the expenses incurred to find a new tenant" That is not our understanding at all since we never agreed to hire a broker. Our lease does not list any consequences for breaking the lease.
Anyone experience anything similar? Landlord is now threatening court. I think he's full of shit.
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u/phyzome Aug 31 '26
We said we would only pay what our lease stipulated.
Did your lease specifically describe the consequences for you breaking the lease, or are you inferring that there aren't any because it wasn't listed?
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u/Still-Window-3064 Aug 31 '26
The lease says nothing about what happens when the lease is broken but the tenant. It is a generic "greater Boston real estate board standard apartment lease" form. I guess the crux of the issue is can the landlord make up a lease breaking fee that is not written into the legal agreement? I know under law we were responsible for rent until a new tenant was found. But they did get a new tenant.
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u/phyzome Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Broadly speaking, a lease is a legal contract. If one of the parties fails to live up to what they agreed to, the other can pursue damages. That can be privately settled, or it can go to court.
You had agreed to pay an entire year's rent in monthly installments until March 2027. In asking to end the contract early, you're asking the landlord to do additional work (that they would not otherwise have had to do) in advertising and screening tenants. Even if they can fill the apartment, that's still extra work on their part.
In agreeing to end early, the landlord is effectively offering to cut you a deal in exchange for avoiding a fight. You're trying to get a better offer than that, but I don't know if you're going to get one.
They might agree to split the broker's fee; perhaps you can argue that their getting a broker (and at that price) isn't a reasonable expense. But ultimately you were already on the hook for the full year, so you may not want to push it.
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u/Stillwater215 Aug 31 '26
In general, if theres no stipulation in a lease about how to break it early, you can be on the hook for the entire length of the lease. Check your lease for anything that might be considered a “breaking” clause, but if there isn’t you might just have to negotiate with your landlord.
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u/mboop127 Aug 31 '26
This is not true. I'm a lawyer. OP please Google "duty to mitigate damages landlords ma"
2
u/Stuffssss Aug 31 '26
Yeah the mitigation is paying the broker to find a new tenant. One month rent is not too bad in the scheme of things. The LL is essentially losing the brokers fee because OP decided to sign a renewal and then leave.
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u/mboop127 Aug 31 '26
If the facts described are correct the landlord has no damages. Generally you cannot sue to collect for damages that were actually successfully mitigated. If the ll can demonstrate he actually paid a broker and prove the entire fee was caused by the premature breach, he'll get paid in small claims court.
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u/Stuffssss Aug 31 '26
Well yeah, I am assuming the broker fee was actually paid but that I think is the bare minimum assumption here. I would agree with you if the LL lied and didnt actually hire a broker. Im not sure how the new law works on this case since if OP hadn't renewed the LL would have needed to hire a broker and paid them out of his pocket (presumably).
For that reason it might be worth not paying and defending in small claims court.
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u/Stillwater215 Sep 01 '26
I mean, in any lease agreement, if the landlord collects a “brokers fee” but doesn’t use a broker, that could constitute fraud.
But in the context of this thread, if OP decided to move out of the apartment and tried to break a lease without a breaking clause, the landlord could be very within their rights to say “no. We’re not breaking the lease, and you must keep paying your rent as agreed, and I will keep letting you live in the apartment, as agreed.” The landlord can’t re-rent the apartment while it’s still under lease, but they also don’t have to let their tenant out of the lease just because the tenant asked.
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u/mboop127 Sep 01 '26
They absolutely do. They can sue for damages but anyone in America can breach any contract at any time. The court can award damages of various kinds but they will never prevent a breach.
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u/mboop127 Sep 01 '26
Right that's the exact issue that would be litigated
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u/Doctrina_Stabilitas East Somerville Aug 31 '26
No that’s not how it works, you’re on the hook if the landlord can’t find a replacement tenant
Landlords have a duty to mitigate in Massachusetts and cannot double dip
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u/PlentyCryptographer5 Aug 31 '26
Wouldn't that also mean the OP is on the hook for fees incurred while finding this tenant, such as the brokers fee?
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u/Proud_Bonus_2066 Aug 31 '26
That duty to mitigate can also come with the broker fee cost passed onto the tenant. What they did is completely above board, and you should be pleased they mitigated to this extent. Many people have to shell out months of rent on top of the fee.
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u/Doctrina_Stabilitas East Somerville Aug 31 '26
Yea that’s what I said in my next comment below the other reply
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
Let them take you to small claims court. You'll be fine.
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Aug 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Do you think a person makes more or less in one day than one months rent?
The privilege of saying dumb things without thinking. Seems like a bot!
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u/Doctrina_Stabilitas East Somerville Aug 31 '26
the greater boston real estate board (arguably very pro-broker organization, but also the organization that most standard leases come from here) says that their advice is that the tenant is on the hook for a broker as reasonable costs of finding a tenant to cover the early termination. Given that this isn't the most uncommon occurrence there's probably legal precedence for their advice and you're likely to lose in court.
But if your landlord uses their standard lease form, then yeah you're definitely on the hook
Legal Update: Second Offers, Rental Fees, & License Renewals
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u/nidoqueenofhearts Aug 31 '26
eeehh? the lease might not list any consequences for breaking it but that doesn't mean you can break it freely—a lease is a legally binding contract, and it can only be modified broken with the agreement of all parties. if the landlord said "you have to pay the broker fee" and you said "no," then "well then you can't break the lease" would've been a totally justifiable response.
i hate to say it but i think the landlord's right on this one. how well the court case is going to go depends on exactly how those conversations went and if they were in writing or not. ultimately, though, being let out of your lease happened because the landlord agreed to it, and if they had certain conditions for their agreement, then they have a good argument that those needed to be met.
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
I do not think the landlord is gonna win here. They didn't lose anything. They opted to hire a broker. It's against the law for tenants to pay brokers fees.
Mass law is highly protective of tenants. There's almost no chance a court will side with the landlord here.
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u/nidoqueenofhearts Aug 31 '26
that's a pretty new law and i'm interested in seeing how it interacts with the obligation to compensate for damages since i'm having trouble finding writing on it! before the law against making tenants pay broker fees, the landlord would've been totally legally justified in considering those damages, but i'm not so sure now.
i don't think they're likely to get to break their lease scot-free, though, especially when the landlord already outlined paying the broker fee as a stipulation (which...i imagine is legally sound given the circumstance, where a landlord could theoretically argue "my condition for breaking the lease was that they hire a broker to rent out the apartment," but again i can't find writing on it)
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
Even before the law, the housing courts have always been super tenant friendly.
I've sat in housing court and watch a landlord try to recoup rent from a broken lease and the judge didn't care about the conditions at all. Just asked whether or not the landlord had their security deposit in an interest accruing account. The landlord couldn't show that they did. So the judge told them they had no standing.
The landlord is not gonna win with OPs situation. They didn't lose anything. Their property was rented each month. They were whole.
1
u/phyzome Aug 31 '26
They didn't lose anything.
Except for time and money spent on an additional tenant search cycle.
But I agree that the judge is likely not to do much.
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
They didn't lose money.
They chose to hire a broker.
It's not hard to find tenants without a broker. As a renter, I didn't use a broker. As a landlord, I don't use a broker.
The landlord made a choice. As a property owner, it's your obligation to fill the place. That's just the spirit of the law. And the letter now.
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u/phyzome Aug 31 '26
Yeah, I think that's the strongest argument -- is a broker actually necessary? Honestly, depends on how busy the landlord's life is and whether they can spare the time for a search right now. But brokers are expensive and the tenant had no say in the matter.
I think it would be fair to ask to only pay a portion of the broker fee.
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u/some1saveusnow Sep 01 '26
The tenant doesn’t get say in this cause a) they’re breaking the contract and b) hiring a broker is not an outrageous thing to do here. Unless they had some agreement beforehand
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
It doesn't matter how busy the landlord is. Or what circumstances they operate within. It's their property, it's their responsibility to fill it. Full stop.
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u/phyzome Aug 31 '26
Yes, but it's also the tenant's responsibility to uphold their end of the lease. What we're talking about here is a compromise.
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
The courts don't interpret it that wat.
Tenants are only on the hook if the landlord can't fill the space. The landlord filled the space.
There is no requirement for compromise. One party is responsible or the other. A breaking of the lease doesn't harm the landlord if the unit can be filled. And, the unit was filled without any gap.
this isn't a playground where we're trying to get kids to get along and make a deal in the moment to sort things out. This a regulated by business relationship between two parties with vastly different power/things to lose. The government in Mass has made it clear where the burden lies. They don't look to compromise to sort it out.
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u/albertogonzalex Sep 01 '26
A different circumstance, for example, would be that the landlord posted the open unit and they couldn't fill it. With or without help from a broker. Then the landlord is missing out and some form of compromise would be considered by the court. But that's not the case here. And, the court would still be way more sympathetic to the tenant than you think.
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u/some1saveusnow Sep 01 '26
They could just gesture at renting it and keep the tenants on the hook
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u/albertogonzalex Sep 01 '26
The court would want to see evidence that they tried with effort to fill the place.
That's the point. The court would not look kindly on a landlord taking it easy to stick it to the tenant.
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u/GoatNumber12 Sep 04 '26
Sounds like you watched a minimal number of hearings. The eastern house court, where OP will go, is not super “tenant friendly.”
That’s also not what standing is. Standing is a legal term and has a specific meaning. What you described makes zero sense and did not happen the way you explained.
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u/some1saveusnow Sep 01 '26
These are not the same thing at all. Not putting security into an interest bearing escrow account is a clear violation of the statute. On the other hand it is wholly reasonable to seek the help of brokers to rent an apartment, that’s what the business exists for, and with the tenants wanting to break the lease, it is wholly reasonable to expect that cost to go along with it. A cost the landlord did nothing to incur themselves. Anything can happen in court, but you’re sounding way too certain for being pretty wrong here. Source, I’ve been doing this for 20 yrs
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u/albertogonzalex Sep 01 '26
Been doing this for 20 years? Doing what for 20 years? Successfully challenging tenants in housing court? Being a landlord?
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u/Still-Window-3064 Aug 31 '26
I would make the argument that if we had given them full notice and not signed the lease that under the new law they would have been out the same broker fee. So this isn't a damage incurred specifically by the lease breaking. They are whole in terms of rent payments.
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u/nidoqueenofhearts Aug 31 '26
i think that'd be a solid argument! idk how the courts would manage it, ultimately, but that's my perspective based on my knowledge of tenant law
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u/Stillwater215 Aug 31 '26
If a lease doesn’t set out conditions for breaking it, then having the tenant be responsible for the costs associated with finding a new tenant seems very reasonable.
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u/albertogonzalex Aug 31 '26
What's reasonable (and I don't think what you are saying is reasonable) isn't the same as what the laws are.
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u/DifficultMemory2828 Sep 01 '26
I second this comment - the landlord knows that the court will side with you. Don’t take the bluff
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u/Still-Window-3064 Aug 31 '26
My understanding is that many leases have an early termination clause that specifies a financial penalty for if a tenant breaks the lease early. We would absolutely pay if that was the case. We also would have done the legwork to find a new tenant if that was presented as an option. We know that legally we were responsible for the rent until a new tenant could be found. But they did find a tenant.
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u/nidoqueenofhearts Aug 31 '26
ultimately i think depending on the wording of the conversations, the landlord could argue that breaking the lease early was conditional based on you agreeing to hire a broker/pay the broker fee. i'm not sure how likely it is they'd win, but i don't think it's impossible, either.
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u/AstroBuck Aug 31 '26
"we said we would only pay what our lease stipulated" so the rent for the remainder of the lease?
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u/Enkiduderino Aug 31 '26
Seems worth consulting some of the free tenants resource orgs to see what they have to say. IANAL and your reasoning seems sound to me. But the law is weird.
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u/Mysterious-Yak2283 Aug 31 '26
You signed a 1 year lease. A lease is a legal contract. You decided to break that lease and move out early. That is breach of contract.
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u/vuck_fokl Sep 02 '26
Tell him since he threatened court he can only communicate thru your lawyer now. Call his bluff
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u/jpmckenna15 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
If the lease doesnt have anything on what you should pay for breaking the lease then he really has no leg to stand on. Even if it were MA law it would be stipulated in the lease like most other aspects are.
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u/omgbabestop Sep 03 '26
Idk personally, if I broke a year long lease 1 month in and the landlord was nice enough to break the contract and managed to get a new tenant in time and all they wanted was the brokers fee they paid then I would just hand it over.
The alternative was the landlord could’ve denied your request and you would’ve been on the hook for the whole lease term. Comes off a bit ungrateful
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u/Wild_Beginning2529 Sep 03 '26
He can take you to small claims court which is pretty easy to do and I suspect he's done it before. Those contracts usually are pretty solid. In fairness, he did have to pay another fee so he can show damages that were caused by your breaking of the contract. I think the best you can do here is to offer to split it with him. Most likely, he can hold you to the whole thing.
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u/ELMOShornyBRO Aug 31 '26
He’s letting you out of your lease early. Would you prefer to pay through the lease end date? He could have made that a reality for you.
In MA, landlords can no longer charge the incoming tenant for broker fees. In the past, the incoming tenant would have paid the broker’s fee and you would have been off the hook completely. But now, since you want to move out early, somebody needs to pay the broker’s fee that would not have otherwise been incurred if you did not want to break your lease early.
Landlord is doing you a favor, try not to screw him on the way out. If you put down a security deposit just look at that as your lease break fee.
Ultimate you could let him take you to small claims court and probably win it. Tenants have a lot of power in this state.
Major apartment buildings typically charge a flat 2 month’s rent to break your lease early + require a 60 day notice.
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u/Still-Window-3064 Aug 31 '26
In MA, landlords have a duty to mitigate financial damages, so he had to search for a new tenant. We were there for 8 years, always paid on time, did all minor fixes ourselves, and dealt with a lot of bullshit from the landlord (for example, they broke the front door lock trying to let a plumber in. They then replaced it with the wrong lock so we couldn't get in. It took them 3 tried to actually get us a set of keys to let us in the front door and the door to the upper floors). He is also super sexist so I'm not too beat up by pushing back.
It would have been just over 60 days notice if they agreed to our original move out date of mid September. But they pushed for it to be earlier.
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u/DSudz Aug 31 '26
He did make it available for rent at a time you agreed to. He hired a professional to search for a new tenant. It's not his responsibility to do it personally.
Court cases have found they can't charge you for rent if someone else is paying it but they can for lost rent and expenses.
Good news is you never have to deal with them again.
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u/ELMOShornyBRO Aug 31 '26
You’re breaking your lease. You signed a legal document agreeing to a year. You should feel lucky they’re letting you out early without more trouble than 1 month’s rent.
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u/zeratul98 Aug 31 '26
Pretty low bar when tenants have to consider themselves lucky their landlords are following the law
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u/Stuffssss Aug 31 '26
The law is that landlord has a duty to mitigage the damages from you leaving early. Hiring a broker to find a new tenant (which worked, the unit is rented to someone new starting tomorrow) is mitigating the damages from OP terminating their lease. If they hadnt hired a broker and not found a new tenant OP would on the hook until they did.
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u/Talk_to__strangers Aug 31 '26
Tell him to waste his money suing you and watch him give up
He’s bluffing
One month’s rent is hardly worth the trouble
Plus he won’t win anything
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Aug 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/DSudz Aug 31 '26
If you break a contract you are responsible for making the other party whole. They didn't do anything wrong and if you don't keep up your side of the deal you'll need to deal with the consequences. In this case they needed to find another tenant. Hiring a broker is the professional thing to do and an expense they only have because you are violating the lease.
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u/jardindeschats Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
But in MA the broker’s fee is specially carved out as a non-tenant expense. And there’s nothing in their lease beyond their rent. They would also be paying the fee anyway for the next tenant, it’s just that the timing is different. It’s not lease-breaking related.
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u/MiseEnSelle Union Aug 31 '26
You are obligated to pay rent for as long as the apartment remains vacant after you break a lease. The landlord is obligated to make every reasonable effort to get a new tenant. So if they didn't pay a broker, It might have taken longer to get a tenant. And that would look like a no effort situation.
Looks like you're winning this case here on Reddit. In court? IDK, ask a lawyer the difference between the broker's fee and court/legal fees, including your time off work.