RENTING AND THE LAW KELLY KLEIN
Q My daughter is on a joint lease with her boyfriend in Minneapolis. They are both students at the University of Minnesota. The boyfriend will be deployed to Iraq on Feb. 10 with the National Guard. Under the Serviceman's Relief Act, the landlord will release the boyfriend from the lease, but said my daughter would be responsible for fulfilling the full lease on her own.
I would have thought that since one is being released, the lease would be void.
Also, the rent and utilities would be 100 percent of my daughter' monthly income. Are there qualifications the landlord would have to evaluate? The apartment is a very small one-bedroom apartment, so finding another person to share the rent is really not an option.
A Under the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act, the landlord must release the service person, but may hold the co-tenant responsible for the entire lease unless the co-tenant is the service person's dependent. The Act does not define the term dependent, so it is a question of fact for the court in each case.
Co-signers of a lease for the service person are released from the lease, but co-tenants not in the military are usually not protected by this law.
This federal law allows military tenants to end a residential lease if they join the military, if they are permanently transferred or if they are deployed for at least 90 days. Military dependents are relieved of any obligations under the lease. After proper notice has been given, the lease is terminated 30 days after the day the next rent was due. There are federal criminal penalties for landlords who violate this statute, including failure to return a security deposit when the tenant has met all statutory requirements.
Your daughter should ask her landlord if she can terminate the lease early in exchange for a couple of months' rent. Most landlords will be sympathetic and give her a break. If the landlord does agree, make sure she gets the agreement in writing. If the landlord doesn't agree to let her out of the lease, she'll have to try and prove she's a dependent if she cannot make rent.
Q I am renting an apartment in a midsized complex. Six weeks ago I heard scratching noises in the wall and later that night a squirrel clawed its way through the wall. I trapped it in the bathroom and it drowned in the toilet. Maintenance would not dispose of it until the next day. They said they didn't find anything else.