SCRA Lease Termination

[sanders]

So I took a real estate course for my major last summer and I remember the prof telling us about the different ways to prematurely terminate a lease without facing any penalies. I remember him saying somthing about servicmen being able to present their orders to the apatment manager and by law, the manager must allow the lease to be ended prematurly. I did a little more research on it and I believe it is called the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

My question is- Does anybody have any experience with this? I am graduating and commissioning (USMC) in May and it is looking like I will be working PTAD at the office until I ship to TBS in September or October. I will need to get an apartment in May but obviously it is pretty tough to find 4-5 month leases, especially in a college town. Should I tell the manager before my lease begins... or would it be better to not mention the fact that I am going to be moving out early till I am about to leave anyway?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Sanders

 

[squorch2]

Always try to do things the easy way by letting your landlord know what's up. If you have to use the big stick of the SCRA, so be it, but it's good to be nice.

 

[snizo]

Sanders,

You're correct - the law requires a landlord to allow you to break your lease early under the SCRA if you give them a copy of your orders. Most landlords know this and almost everyone on this website has done it. Most landlords will let you go with 30 days notice, but the law says the effective date of lease termination is 30 days after the next rent due date.

You're not required to tell your landlord up front, but it would be nice of you to do. Just be careful that your landlord doesn't try to not rent the apartment/house to you because you're in the military and will break the lease early (which would be illegal).

Congratulations on your upcoming commissioning!

 

[ArkhamAsylum]

Don't tell the landlord that you're only planning on sticking around for a few months, because guess what? You could end up staying there a lot longer than you originally intended. It's happened to me, and happened to a lot of guys that I know, so I'd wager to say that it probably happens to just about everyone at some point in their career. The opposite is also true; you could spend much less time than you anticipated.
I think the safest and most courteous thing to do, for both parties, is to be up front with the landlord that you're in the military, but don't pretend to know when you'll be vacating. Doing so may cause the landlord to begin planning for your absence well in advance of any orders, which could cause headaches later on.