Am I responsible for a house lease which has not yet started?

In part it depends on where you live.

In NJ, a residential lease for a term of 1 year or more may be cancelled within 3 business days, and your deposit must be refunded. Perhaps your state has a similar law.

A landlord has a duty to mitigate his damages, so you won't be responsible for 12 months rent no matter what anyone on yahoo tells you. He has an obligation to rerent the unit as fast as he can, and if he doesn't take the proper actions, you won't be responsible for anything.

The smart thing to do would be to get a landlord/tenant attorney to review your lease and advise you. Every state has different laws, and you may very well be able to get out of this without penalty or at a nominal cost if you act quickly.

I am an experienced landlord, and sorry - but I don't have good news for you.

Once you have signed the lease, you are legally responsible to make the payments for the entire terms of the lease. You have entered into a legally binding contract and if you were to break it the landlord would almost certainly take you to court and obtain a judgement against you which will show up on your credit report for 7 years. Trust me - you don't want this hassle.

If you ask nice, most landlords will let you out of the lease if you agree to pay until they can find another tenant - usually 1 to 2 months. They may also make you pay their advertising expense ($100-$200).

Good Luck!

Depending on how it is drafted, the lease is like a contract...the contract usually guarantees you a place to live without a rent increase for a certain period of time, and it guarantees the landlord known rent. If you back out, the landlord probably feels that he has wasted the opportunity to offer it to someone else and he then has to take the time to offer it again, therefore he loses the guaranteed rent that would be coming in if you ocupied the dwelling. Check the lease, but if it is written like most leases , you might be stuck.

You signed a lease and are responsible for the payment under the terms of the lease. The term of your lease begins Oct 1. Your obligation is to pay the rent as specified in the lease. It makes no difference whether you have moved in or whether you will be living there or not. If the landlord decides to sue you he will win.

Normally a lease will specify a total amount to be paid under the lease, such as $12,000. It will also specify the terms of payment, usually in a residential lease it is a monthly payment, in this case $1,000 per month. If you were to sign this lease you would owe $1,000 per month until the $12,000 is paid whether you ever moved in or not.

as a landlord i had the reverse situation where i had a tenant sign a lease and accepeted a deposit, before his background check came in (a newbie mistake of mine years ago). My lawyer told me that even though i got the deposit the period didn't start yet and there hasn't been a true financial commitment and i did not give possession yet, so i could back out of the deal.

In short you can still back out, no court will force you to pay rent for an apartment you never occupied regardless of the lease. it may be hard to get your deposit back, however you can go after it in small claims court if they refuse. Also make sure you send the owner a registered letter stating your intent to back out, otherwise he can claim you did actually take possession

You are only responsible for the deposit. Circumstances change all the time, and people have to back out of leases. That's what the security deposit is there for anyway!

People lose jobs. People have relatives with arising medical issues. Stuff happens.

I am a landlord. I have a tenant who is supposed to move in Sept1 2016. We let him sign the lease to enroll his children into a new school system. We have decided not to rent to him. He has not paid a deposit,not put any utilities in his name. We have not given him the keys. We asked for first and last month deposit. Due when he moves in. By a reliable scource we have found out he has not paid his utilities at his current place and they have been turne off. We also found out that he is planning on not moving in till the middle of Sept. Can we cancel this lease. There is sixteen days till the first.

This depends on the state or province and also the conditions of your lease. Most leases have a "break-away" clause which allows you to sever the lease if your job location changes or assumptions of moving for reasons of employment change. Seldom do leases have clauses which allow you to sever the contract for reasons of financial status. However if you had to earn "x" on a net/net basis to qualify and you salary/wage changes to make you NOT QUALIFY you may have the ability to back out on the basis you no longer qualify. You will lose your deposit I would imagine, but I would look at it from a qualification standpoint. Read your agreement and exploit all the loopholes available.

Youor obligations are spelled out in the terms of the lease which you signed. Your signature binds you to the lease.

Read the lease carefully, perhaps more carefully now that you are screwed than you may have done before signing it. You may find some way out of the lease within the presents of the lease. You might otherwise buy your way out of the lease or sub-let the house, if the lease permits that. You may be able to negociate the lease with the owner or resort to using an attorney to try to wrest yourself from the lease. Good luck!

What you should have done was read the lease agreement BEFORE you signed.

What you need to do now is read the lease agreement, yes all of that fine print - it will tell you what you signed up for, how many months you're liable for.

Yes, you can walk away and lose your deposit, and your landlord can ruin your credit by listing you as a no pay.

After you read the agreement and know what you CAN do, then you can determine what you SHOULD do.