New job/ had to break my lease/ Being sued for $7,000.00

Ok, I was offered a job with the Federal Government in February of 2006 and was given 16 days to show up to my duty station. One of the first things I did was inform my apartment complex in Colorado of the new job in Arkansas and that I would have to break my Lease. They insisted on trying to collect $5,044.27. I was not able or willing to pay such an excessive amount and tried to work with them but to no avail. Since then they have sent this debt to a collection agency which has not budged on the amount in fact has raised it and now taking me to court. I have tried getting help with my Employment assistance Program but the lawyers are too expensive for me.

The problem lies in that I live in Bella Vista, Arkansas and I am being sued in the Adams County Court in Colorado. I have sent in my answer to the court and it has now been scheduled for a trial in the middle of January. I just wonder if anyone has any information that might be useful in this case or would know the best route into hiring a affordable lawyer in the area.

birddog2124:

The problem lies in that I live in Bella Vista, Arkansas and I am being sued in the Adams County Court in Colorado.

Unfortunately, you are being sued in the right place. Colorado rules of civil procedure allow for the lawsuit to take place where the cause of action arose.

Fortunately, Colorado requires that a landlord mitigate his damages. In other words, he's required to re-rent as soon as reasonably possibly and is only entitled to the amount of rent from the time you left to the time he re-rented.

See: Schneiker v Gordon, 732 P.2d 603, 612 (Colo. 1987):

• the measure of damages under a commercial lease was “the amount it takes to place the landlord in the position [it] would have occupied had the breach not occurred.”

I don't believe that the full case decision can be found on the internet but you can go to any local law library where you are at, and find it in the lawbooks and get a copy.

You'll need to find out when that apartment was re-rented.

Are you being sued at the small claims level or regular civil court?

You can check the court rules to see if the small claims level allows discovery:

http://www.courts.stat...

If you are in regular civil you have the right to engage in discovery and can file a Request for the Production of Documents and serve it on the Plaintiff to get the apartment's rental records.

Here's an additional resource for you where you can find court rules and statutes:

http://www.michie.com/...=

By the way, if somebody mentions the statute of limitations, it's 3 years in CO, but that won't help you because the statute of limitations stops running if you leave the state.

Critical that you find out when unit was re rented!

Critical that you use counsel in CO to defend!

  The quote above may or may not be relevant--but use counsel:

"See: Schneiker v Gordon, 732 P.2d 603, 612 (Colo. 1987):

• the measure of damages under a commercial lease was “the amount it takes to place the landlord in the position [it] would have occupied had the breach not occurred.”

If the suit is being brought by new holder of debt there are good odds the new holder is way short of facts to support debt--and if rules permit it, you load them down with massive production/discovery requests.

Me, as a LL I see LL's point---but as to mitigation  if I played about more than 60-90 days to get a new tenant I'd think my credibility was to fail --IF under relevant state law I had duty to mitigate breech!  The non breeching party is some states does NOT have duty to mitigate--the above suggests the LL in CO does have a duty or cap--but you need CO counsel to be sure.

The collector would be wise to settle for 2-3 mos worth of rent- as I suspect court may cap the award along such lines -and so might you if it avoids a big legal bill--but if you try a barter do so from position of strength as to issues --and if they agree--get it in writing and case marked closed/satisified before money changes or at same time money changes--but not on basis of promise to do it later

You are obligated under the terms of your lease. Getting a new job is not grounds to break a contract. If you fail to respond the landlord will get a default judgment against you.

Agree--if you fail to defend/respond/counter... or reach a written settlement  duly recorded --then odds are plaintiff gets a defualt judgement for full sums you are claimed to owe him--and you sort of blow any opportunity to argue otherwise.

Then the winner plaintiff domesticates the win into your state and collects under your state rules out of your hide!

(As LL I've done it that way and folks make it easy if they are no show.!)

I dropped the keys off to the Leasing Office on February 17, 2006, in which February I had already paid the rent in full. I have a letter from them stating the apartment was re-rented in April of 2006. I have tried to settle with them and have conceded to the $1515.00 Lease Break fee and $826.00 for March of 2006 rent. They will not settle and have thrown in fees over and beyond that I cant even find in the contract.

Sounds like you have the perfect defense; I wouldn't worry as long as you have that "we re-rented" letter.  Too bad they won't listen to reason, but maybe they're under the ridiculous assumption they're entitled to rent from you AND the new renters...big surprise.

Are you being sued at the small claims level or regular civil court?

They are suing me in civil court, I have sent in my answer to the court and it has now been scheduled for a jury trial in January. I also have a letter from the Apartment complex stating they re-rented the apartment a month after I left.

My rent was $826.00 so I figure that is a fair settlement but I have also conceded to a $1515.00 lease break fee just to get this done with and off my record but the collection agency would never budge. They are trying to collect for a 60 days notice clause, Lease Break fee, all concessions during my lease and a 30 day notice fee. It’s crazy to have to pay $5,044.27 to get out of a lease that was re-rented a month later. 

I have responded it is set up for a jury trial now. I am aware I broke the lease and that a new job is not grounds to break it but $5,044.27 to break a one bedroom apartment lease is a little excessive dont you think? I have offered them the lease break fee of $1515.00 and the months rent that it was not rented of $826.00 for a totl of $2,341.00, I think that was fair.

You broke the lease, that much is conceded. So the real issue here is how much you owe. Understand what the duty to mitigate means. It means that the landlord had to use reasonable efforst to limit his damages, which in this case means trying to rent the place out for as much as possible as soon as possible. His damages are what it cost him (if anything) because of your breach, taking into account his efforst to rent the place. Here, he rented it shortly after you left, a month or so. So, as long as he got somewhere near market rent from the new tenant, he's mitigated his damages. Now the question is, what damages did he suffer? He lost a month's rent, plus costs to release the place. But what was the amount of the new rent he got from the next tenant? If lease amount was lower than you were paying, he may also have damages for the difference. If it was higher, that extra might offset the loss from the month that it was not rented, and the costs incurred in renting the place. Thus, it is not only important to have the letter showing the apartment was rented a month later, you also need to know how much rent that new tenant was paying.

If the landlord failed to mitigate damages, then the court will have to try to fix damages as though he had mitigated his damages, which will necessarily be imprecise. In that situation, you'd need to have evidence of what the market for rentals was like at the time to determine about how long it might have expected to remain on the market unoccupied and what rent he could have recieved had he made the effort to mitigate damages.

You also owe them reasonable interest and probably attorney fees.

Interest on what, the absurd amount they claim I owe. I think not, they can put into the contract I owe them my first born if I break the lease, doesn’t make it legal. The fact of the matter is I broke my lease paid the month in full when I left half way through and they had the apartment rented back out the next month. They didn’t loose any money on the apartment at all. I agreed to pay the lease break fee and that should have been sufficient to them at the time. There they didn’t loose any money and gained an extra $1515.00 for me leaving, that’s a pretty good deal for not much work of just calling the next person on the waiting list. The fact is they are greedy and if it goes to trial they will loose the law stipulates this.

Interest and attorney fees on the money you agree you owe.

I agree you probably owe interest on whatt you agreed you owe-and any proper release costs -but if damages were mitigated by new tenant I don't quite buy that attorneys fees to chase a sum which gets disallowed is logical to award--if the extra is disallowed that is.

But this is NOT a home brew defense and you need counsel and physical presence--plaintiff probably knows that its expensive for you to defend in remote place and subject to numerous stall and reschedule tactics.

birddog2124:

I agreed to pay the lease break fee and that should have been sufficient to them at the time.

If the lease contains a specific fee for terminating the lease early, known as a "liquidated damages" provision, you will owe that so long as the provision was a reasonable attempt to fix the amount of damages from breaking the lease. But that would also cap your damages for breaking the lease—they can't claim higher actual damages when the lease has a liquidated damages provision in it. If the lease specifies you owe interest and/or attorney's fees for collection action, you'd owe those in addition to the liquidated damages amount. Colorado law does not automatically give the landlord either interest or attorney's fees—it must be specified in the lease. (Once the landlord gets a judgment, interest does run on that at a statutory rate if no interest was set in the lease.) The only limit on interest is that it must not be usurious.