Free At Last!

The most pressing thing on my mind lately has been the 11 months left on my lease after I move out at the end of May. My landlord said that he would only let me out of my lease if I found another person who would sign a 12-month lease. Ever since April, I was freaking out about this. I posted ads online, in two newspapers for three weeks, and plastered the city with advertisements about my spectacular apartment.

Despite all of my efforts, I had very few calls and even fewer visitors. I was desperate and despondent, certain that I would be bankrupted by August and living under the bridge at Lower Wacker Drive.

Right as I was at the breaking point, I had a conversation with a neighbor about our darling landlord, and she happened to mention that she and her husband managed to get out of a lease by contacting the Illinois Tenant Union. She told me that these people are so well-versed with the law and landlords in this city, that they guarantee they will get you out of your lease.

It took me a few days of rumination to decide to check these people out. I visited them at their website, checked them out at the Better Business Bureau, and decided it was worth a try.

They work on the principle that most landlords are pond scum. They are greedy bastards who are also very lazy. They earn their money by taking advantage of others. He said, that while Illinois law is very heavily biased toward the property owners, there are some predictable ways of beating them at their own game, because they tend not to follow the rules. It turns out that my landlord, as kind as he'd appeared to be before I tried to break my lease, is also scum.

The ITU charged me 1/2 month's rent, which would cover everything from private investigation to litigation and advice. Within an hour, I found out that I could be freed from bondage for the following reasons:

1. It was my landlord's responsibility, not mine to find a tenant to replace me. It was, however, my financial obligation to continue paying the rent until he was able to find someone to sublet, providing that he was searching in good faith. Since he never attempted to assist me, he was in breach of contract.

2. There are several serious violations of building code going on here that he has refused to fix. While this doesn't get me out of the contract, threatening to report them does. He would be in unto his eyeballs in debt if he would have to fix all of these problems. However, as provided in my lease, I gave him 2 weeks to fix about 5 pages worth of defects to this building. If he were not able/willing to fix them within 2 weeks, it is within my rights to break my lease.

3. The papers he gave me to sign at renewal are not the current forms for use in 2003. The agreement signed on them is therefore not binding.

4. He lied about violations to code on the lease. This leaves him wide open to a lawsuit. The fact that I know this, was designed to frighten the little bastard into compliance.

This is all it took. My new buddy at the ITU and I wrote him some letters stating these facts and a few other tidbits, and sent them to him via certified return receipt mail. We also sent a set that he didn't have to sign for, with a receipt that this had been done. The day he got the letters, the gig was up. He agreed to all of my terms with no question or hesitation. I am free, not owing him a single dime.

We signed an agreement tonight stating the same, except he thought he would put in a little clause about me not being able to sue him for damages. That's fine. I don't intend to do that. I do, however, plan on reporting the violations to the city after I'm gone. The little bastard shouldn't get to take advantage of the other tenants in this building.

The best part about all of this is that I am FREE! I don't think I have been this relaxed or this happy in at least a year. I can now enjoy my move like a normal person and concentrate on my new life as a property owner. What can I say? I am one exceptionally happy camper.