Is there a way to get out of the lease for personal and family safety reasons?
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Is there a way to get out of the lease for personal and family safety reasons?
I am living in a rental home. My house was broken into and robbed 2 weeks ago. We filed a police report and notified the landlord of the damages. The damages were repaired and now we went outside to find out truck stolen from our driveway. This doesn’t seem a random act as we’re the only house on the entire street being targeted. Is there a way to get out of my lease early because of the multiple thefts when I have police reports on both incidents? Also, there are already a couple of known gang members and felons in jail for the crimes and more names are coming out.
Asked on April 11, 2012 under Real Estate Law, Texas
Answers:
FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
Unfortunately, unless your written lease has a provision allowing you to end it without recourse due to safety issues, you cannot get out of it without suffering possible consequences with your landlord with one exception.
The exception is if the landlord knew before you leased the unit the property was in a high crime area and did not disclose this material fact to you before you entered the lease. Proving such knowledge by the landord is pretty hard to do.
The other way to get out of your lease without recourse is if you are on a month-to-month lease. If so, just give your landlord the 30 day written notice to end your lease.
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