Can a tenant cancel a lease before they ever move in?

Atty. Tom Olsen: Caleb, over the years, I've had a lot of people call me and say, "Tom, I entered into a lease last weekend, and before I ever moved in, I changed my mind. I don't want to lease this place anymore." What happens in that scenario with the landlord and the tenant?

Atty. Caleb Maggio: Well, Tom, if you have a written lease agreement, and both parties have already signed that written lease agreement, you are locked in. Now there's a few ways, maybe you could terminate that with some sort of penalty. The first place to check is if it has an early termination clause in that lease agreement. Typically, what the statute allows is you to put in there a penalty of two months' rent to early terminate that agreement, but it does not require that that be in a lease agreement.

Atty. Olsen: Is that automatically the landlord is going to get two months' worth of rent in that situation, push comes a shove, and they're in front of a judge? Is the judge really going to give the landlord what their actual damages was with the period of time it takes to put another tenant in there?

Atty. Maggio: Right. Well, Tom, your damages as a landlord are going to be calculated by either what you agreed to as liquidated damages in the actual lease, or if you didn't agree to anything in the lease as far as liquidated damages, it's going to be what you're owed minus what you should have or did mitigate. Like you just said, how long does it take to find a new tenant? The court will decide that, and then you'll get rent up to the point when you should have found that new tenant.

Atty. Olsen: Caleb, over the years, I've found so many people just have an idea that here in the state of Florida that whatever contract you sign, you've got an automatic three-day right of rescission. All contracts, you've got three days to think about it and get out of it. No, we know that's not the case.

Atty. Maggio: No, Tom, that's true for personal service contracts where they come to your door or they approach you outside of their own office, and they get you to sign that contract outside of their office. Then there's a statute that requires most of those contracts actually have a three-day no penalty cancellation clause, but lease agreements are not that contract and most contracts are not that type of contract.

Atty. Olsen: If there is a three-day right of rescission that's provided by Florida law, the law also states that there must be big, bold language in your contract, stating your right of three-day right of rescission, and exactly how to perform it if you wanted to.