Military Tenant Wants to Break Lease

[Colin Reid]

I have an issue, and I'm looking for opinions on how to deal with it.

I have a property in Texas that is being managed through a PM. That PM emailed me at the end of last week to inform me the tenant is going to be moving out. I reviewed my documents over the weekend and realized they have 5 months left on the lease. Naturally, as a military member myself, I assumed they had received orders and were exercising the military clause of the lease. I planned to call the PM on Monday.

Then on Saturday, I received a letter with return receipt from the tenant. I don't contact tenants personally, so this was a surprise. The letter said they had enjoyed living in my property, but had bought a house and want out of the lease. They want to pay me 1.8x rent and vacate in January. The lease expires in May.

When I contacted the PM, she was surprised they had written me, and said she had told them they had to keep paying until a new tenant was found. I told her to stick with that for the time being.

I'm in the military but I've never been in this position as landlord or tenant. I've also never dealt with base housing offices with respect to off-base leases, again either as landlord or tenant. Do I need to be worried about getting "black listed" if I enforce my lease? Has anyone successfully enforced a lease by contacting the tenant's commander? Has anyone sent a military tenant to collections?

I'm not looking to be greedy or screw anyone over, I just don't want to lose money because they chose not to read the contract before signing.

[Jennifer L.]

@Colin Reid With a quick google search, in Texas, it appears that you have to make reasonable efforts to re-rent the property.  So, tell your PM to work on finding another tenant for when the vacancy is going to occur. Your PM should know the law and should be advising you, by the way.

Your tenants are on the hook for the remainder of the lease, but because you have a duty to mitigate, you can't just sit back and let the property remain vacant.  You have to try to rent it out, but you don't have to relax your standards. 

By the way, this happened to me in California this summer.  I got the place leased the day after the old tenants turned over their keys.  I didn't lose any money and they got their deposit back.  It was a little stressful, but it worked out.