Monday, July 6, 2015

Termination of a Lease - Exceptions for Military Personnel on Active Duty

Those who serve in the military put their lives on the line on a regular basis so that the rest of us can be free and enjoy all the rights and benefits as Americans.  As a small token of recognition of that sacrifice, Congress enacted the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act in 2003 (SCRA).  This relatively new act replaced the Soldier's and Sailor's Civil Relief Act that was originally enacted in 1918 and revised in 1940.

There are many provisions within the SCRA that a servicemember should familiarize him or herself with.  For this blog post,we are going to focus on a particular provision relating to the termination of leases.  Simply stated, if you are on active duty and you receive military orders to change your permanent base or to go on active duty for not less than 90 days, you may terminate your lease.  You may also terminate your lease if you decide to enter the military.  This provision applies to both residential as well as business and agricultural leases.  It effectively allows the lease to be terminated completely.  A spouse or dependent is not left stuck on the lease while the military member relocates to his or her new assignment. 

In order to properly terminate your lease, you must give written notice of your termination to your landlord along with a copy of your orders and give at least one full month's notice.  In other words, if your rent is due on May 1 and you get orders on May 6 to deploy on June 6 and you provide your landlord notice on May 7, you will still be responsible for June rent as the notice does not become effective until June 1.  If you receive notice on May 28 and provide notice to the landlord on May 29, your lease obligations still terminate on June 30.  However, if you do not deliver notice of your termination until June, then you are obligated to pay rent through July.

Landlords are well advised to promptly return any overpayment and properly handle the security deposit.  The failure to do so can subject you to a fine or imprisonment of up to one year.  This, of course, would be in addition to the remedies provided under Massachusetts law for the failure to comply with applicable statutes.

Landlords are not completely without remedies.  A landlord can petition the court for equitable relief.  Some examples where a landlord might want to seek equitable relief are as follows:  For example, imagine a scenario where the landlord spends a great deal of money building out a property to accommodate the tenant's new business and planned on recouping those expenses of the course of a multi-year lease. Six months into the tenant's occupancy, he decides to join the military.  The landlord may want to seek reimbursement for the build out.  A landlord could also ask the court to order the tenant to pay costs to re-rent the property.  Because the tenant has a statutory right to terminate the lease and landlords should be on notice about this possibility, the reasons for granting the equity will likely have to be fairly powerful or involve some form of deception by the tenant for a court to award relief.

In sum,  when renting to a person on active duty, landlord must familiarize themselves with special rules that might apply.  Tenants who are in the military should also be aware of their rights and the timing of notices they must give to extricate themselves from a lease.