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We recently bought a house and broke our Ohio Apt. lease. What are my rights?

I am a firm believer in rules and laws and therefore realize that in most cases, when I sign a contract I'm bound to it. In this case my wife and I moved into an apartment community knowing we would be looking for a house and disclosed this to the property manager. We had been in the apartment for 6 months and then found a house. The property manager (apartment community) is making us give 60 days notice and revert back from the 1 year promotional rate they gave us at move in time to full market price for those 60 days. In addition we must pay a break lease fee of 1.5x our monthly rent (market rate) and pay back the promotional discount we recieved during our 6 months renting. Here are my issues that I'm unclear about. 1. While I realize it is our responsibility to read through the lease, when your handed a 20 page, small print lease agreement with tons of legalese and they stand over you until you sign it, it's difficult to read through all that timely and understand it. That's why they offered to walk us through it and explain each section. As they did this they failed to explain that they had two seperate break lease policies. One policy was in effect for the first year of residency, the second applied to any residency beyond a year. During the first year they hit you harder if you break the lease. They failed to tell us this and never indicated (until we gave notice) that the break lease policy was different the first year. During their explanation of the break lease policy at our lease signing, they described the policy for residency after the first year without specifying this. This however is verbal discussion and the contract does state it clearly. My issue with it is that we were mislead on this point - most likely on purpose. 2. I've lived in 8 apartments in 5 states and have never even heard of 60 day notice when breaking the lease. It's always been 30 days. Is 60 days notice legal? How can they require 60 day notice and be earnestly looking to re-rent an apartment? They're just making me pay more instead of trying to re-rent the apartment. I happen to know that within our 60 days they rented numerous apartments on the property. Do I have any rights here? 3. I'm assuming it is, but can they legally require me to pay back 6 months of the 1 year promotional discount that they gave us when we moved in? 4. Our promotional rate was basically $100 off each month for a year. However we were paying $100 more each month than the same apartment anywhere else on the property because of it's unique location - it overlooked a small lake and two fountains. Since we've lived here the two fountains have not worked properly and the past two months only one has worked. We've put in dozens of maintenance requests to have them fixed but they still have not been fixed. If we are paying extra for this unique view and the fountains aren't working, do we have any rights there? When I look at this objectively I can see that what property manager is asking is not too off the wall. However I've had one lawyer and two Real Estate agents as well as countless friends tell me to look into this because it doesn't sound right and at least in the case of the 1st year break lease policy, we were mislead. Any thoughts or advice on this would be great.

Public Comments

1. It's your responsibility to read and understand anything you sign. Pay up.
2. You have no rights. You broke the lease. What are they going to do? Will they spend the money on lawyers to recoupe their money? More likely they will not. Since the housing market is in a downturn, they will rent the property pretty quick like. The 60 days is normal where I come from. In the future red the fine print. But I would walk away and not count on getting any of your deposits back. It's up to you.
3. Ohio has some wierd laws when it come to rentals. See if you can get someone to either take over the lease, sub lease or something else where they are not losing money. Did you know your 30 day notice does not go into effect until the 1st of the following month? In other words, if you notify on the 15th of the month, it does not take effect until the 1st of the next month which means you have to pay the extra 15 days rent. If the landlord wants to persue that, that is the way the law is written. Some do, I had one that did not. Greedy McThumb.
4. (1): What did the mortgage you signed for the new house look like? I hope you read it. All legal documents are 20 pages, small type, and are up to you to read and resolve. (2) 60 days isn't bad to break a lease; 90 is common (3)Of course they can. Terms of the lease (4) After the fact you are looking for a complaint on the rent? Doubtful. Time to complain was 3 months ago. I'd pay and be happy I'll never rent again.
5. I would simply walk away, forfeit you deposit, and let them chase you. By law, they have to make a good faith effort to rerent your apartment, and if they do, you are not liable for anything. If this occurs before the time you had paid for (via forfeiting deposits and etc.) They owe you the difference
6. You will be responsible for either the remaining 6 months, or the terms of the lease break agreement. You need to do the math, and find out which cost you less. You may find that you are better off delaying closing on your new home by a month, and staying in the apartment, then paying off the balance of the lease.
7. "in most cases, when I sign a contract I'm bound to it." Wrong. In ALL cases, you're bound by it. 1. You have a responsibility under the law to know what you're signing. You could have insisted on having a lawyer review the lease - you CHOSE not to - that's how the Court will view it. 2. A 60 day notice is fair in this case - they have the right to insist that you pay the full rate to the end of the lease. The Court will see the arrangements as fair, since they're less than the landlord could legally require you to pay. 3. Yes. The discount was based on you staying the full year - you didn't. 4. You agreed to the rent - you can't un-agree now. The Court isn't going to care about the maitenance issues - you had the right to sue for specific performance and didn't. Pay the money - you're getting a deal.
8. Based on the detail of your quetions it "appears" as though you know EXACTLY what you got yourself into. A lease is a legal agreement and once both parties agree to it, it takes both parties to agree to make any changes to it so unless your property manager is willing to void the early termination clause you are obligated to fulfill your promise. To say this "is not too off the wall" and then in the same paragraph say "it doesn't sound right" is a contradiction. Getting a 20 page document which completly outlines your responsibilities doesn't sound like being mislead. It looks as though you were comletely informed of the penalties of breaking your lease and now your are hoping to score sympathy points by playing the "mislead game". The best thing you can do is pay the penalty. If you do not, the property manager is completly within his/her rights to bring the matter before a judge and your defense of "being mislead" and "this doesn't sound right" will not hold up in court. If it goes to court, you can count on additional court, collection, and attorney fees getting added onto the balance of what you owe. You can count of all of that being slapped onto your newly acquired home in the form of a judgment.