The vast majority of people do not sign a lease with the intention to break it by moving out early.
However, life has a way of getting in the way of even the best laid plans and residents sometimes find themselves needing to vacate their unit before their lease expires or sooner than 60 days from now.
If you need to vacate but your roommate does not, please review our post about
Roommate Changes .
I.) If everyone will be vacating, then, in all circumstances, the
first course of action is to submit a signed, written notice to vacate stating the exact date you will be moving out . We cannot sign a new lease starting during your lease term/ obligation without a signed, written notice to vacate. There is no specific form you need use to submit notice to vacate; you may use any old piece of paper to write
We/I, [all adult resident names], will vacate [your unit's address] on/ before [your move-out date].
Signed, [all adult resident signatures]
then either take a photo of or scan the signed notice and send it as an attachment to us via email (
Lucy@WEUhomes.com ).
In the state of Wisconsin, an oral statement or an emailed statement without an ink signature do not suffice as notice to vacate. Any notice to vacate must be signed by all adult residents; if only one of multiple adult residents signs the notice to vacate, the notice to vacate will not be valid or binding.
If you do not know when specifically you will be vacating, you do have the option to indicate that you will vacate with, for example, two weeks' notice of an application having been received on your unit. Please Understand: Just because a person submitted an application does not mean that they will be approved; sometimes, an applicant takes a long time to get us their proof of income or to let us know they cannot find a cosigner. This means that you run the risk of finding yourself almost completely moved out when we find out the person who applied for your unit has cancelled their application or is denied.
II.) Upon receipt of that notice to vacate, we will start advertising and attempting to
rerent your apartment for the date after you have said you will vacate .
You are welcome to advertise & show your unit as well; Facebook Marketplace seems to have been a very helpful resource for people looking to find replacement residents. Once we have your notice to vacate, your unit will be posted to our website & any interested parties may apply for your specific unit there. Please check with your resident manager or the Milwaukee office to find out what the market rent would be, as well as to get any additional information about accepted animals, parking options, etc.
There is no "lease buy-out" option
If we are successful in rerenting your apartment, we have the legal right to assess a rerental fee of up to $300. The fee would
only be charged
if we saved you at least one full month's rent; the fee usually ends up around $150. If you found the replacement residents, conducted your own showing, they were approved, & they sign a fresh lease on your unit, you would
not be charged a rerental fee.
III.) Regardless of whether or not you are still physically living in your unit,
you would remain liable for utilities and monthly rent owed to us until the earliest of the following as applicable :
1) your lease with us expires,
2) the last date of the month in which the submitted notice's 60 days lands,
3) the No Winter Vacate clause ends, OR
4) the replacement residents' new lease start date.
To help clarify, if you give us notice to vacate on
1) Jul 10th for Sept 30th and your lease doesn't expire until Oct 31st, you'd remain liable for rent until Oct 31st,
2) Jul 10th for Aug 31st and you're on a month-to-month extension, you'd remain liable for rent until Sept 30th,
3) Sept 10th for Oct 31st and you're on a month-to-month extension, you'd remain liable for rent until Feb 28th, OR
4) any date for any date prior to the end of your liability, your liability would end on the date the replacement residents' lease starts.
Your physical occupancy does not determine whether or not you are responsible for monthly rent. Just as you must continue to make car payments or car insurance payments if your car is in the shop for two months, so too must you continue to make rent payments if you are not living in your unit.
