breaking a lease

I think you realize there's no standard. Hopefully your landlord is reasonable and you are a good tenant. Is this an institutional landlord or individual?

Its a large NYC landlord. To clarify the question: does a requirement of "x"-days days' notice (use 60 days as an example), plus payment of a pre-set fee, sound like a reasonable cancellation agreement for a tenant? Looking at it as more of a just-in-case clause, we don't want to be stuck paying the balance of a lease if we need to move earlier than expected due to job changes / buying property elsewhere / etc...

Small Manhattan LL here.

I let tenants break their leases if they find a replacement tenant (I put apt on our website and also send people their way). They just have to pay for the full month and be out by the 21st-ish so we can paint/clean and have their replacement in my the 1st.

Most of the time, we have 3 happy parties, and it is done within a month, maybe two.

Side note: I have been a tenant at one of the big LLS (Related) when I bought a few years ago, and they tried to screw me every way they could. Dealing with the underlings of underlings taught me a few sleazy tactics I would NEVER even think about doing to any of my tenants, even/especially on the way out

We have an "out" clause in our current lease which allows us to terminate our lease upon 90 days written notice with no cancellation fee. The "out" clause does require us to be out of the apartment 7 days before the termination date. We obtained this clause in a lease renewal and not the original lease.

Pepino, sounds reasonable, but depends what you can negotiate, but obviously a smart thing to try to negotiate.

MAV, can you give examples of what to watch out for based on your experience when terminating?

I'm in a rent stabilized building (20+years) I've signed a conract for an unfinished condo in a new development. My lease is up in November but my drop dead date in my contract is January 1, 2011. I'm thinking my landlord will be happy to see me leave but? So should I sign a new lease or let him know I want to leave? What if my condo isn't finished or worse runs out of monies?

Pepino / Nosy - where are your apartments? Maybe you can reassign the lease? I'm looking for a new place...

Send me an email - lee (at) leefinkel (dot) com, if you're interested...