Imagine renting a house, and you’re planning on staying there awhile. What would you do if your landlord claimed she needed to kick you out before your lease is up so she can move in right away? Would you agree to break your lease to help her out, or would you refuse to move out until your lease is up?

In this story, one family is in this exact situation, and they have multiple reasons that they don’t want to move out early. Yet, they’re wondering if they should agree to move out anyway.

Let’s read all about it.

our landlord has said they’re in a DV situation and want to move back in immediately, we want to stay to the end of our lease, AITAH?

last month our landlord (via the REA) said they wanted to move back in immediately, no mention of DV – the REA said they could offer free rent or heavily discounted rent for a short period if we did

We said no, we want to stay until the end of the lease which is the second half of this year, the reasons we said no:

The rental market where we live is very competitive and expensive right now.

But that’s just the first reason. There are many more…

We’ve only been here for a bit over a year, before that, we had to move because the place we were in got too expensive, we were only there for a year, before that the place we lived was great, but it got sold and the new owners moved in – so

• we hate the uprootedness
• moving is expensive
• ergo, we don’t want to before we have to

We have pets, that makes it much harder to find a place.

Because we’re so sick of moving, we were going to use this time before our lease was up to find a place to buy. If we move immediately, we obviously can’t do that, and we’re in a worse off financial position from moving, have to be locked into another lease for however long, have to move again, etc

The landlord REALLY wants to move in right away.

Then in the last week (like a month since the initial email), we got another email from the REA saying the landlord wants to move in immediately because they and their young kid are in a DV situation, and apparently the landlord isn’t working and so her “only option financially” is to move here

so there are two problems,

1. I don’t know whether to believe her (why wait another month? what about the income she gets from us as renters? why would you tell us about DV? the landlord and their partner don’t live far, why would she want to move only to end up potentially still close to him? if your financial position is bad, why would you offer free rent, why not just rent elsewhere with the income you get from us? if there’s no mortgage on the place, then our rent is good income)

Here’s the second problem.

2. if we do believe her, it still messes us up to find another rental

we genuinely don’t know what to do, and haven’t made a decision

so

AITAH if we stay for the duration of the lease and don’t move immediately?

I feel bad for the landlord, but they shouldn’t feel forced to break their lease.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this situation.

The landlord can’t break the lease.

Here’s how it works in Ontario.

This person would take the offer to move.

Here’s another vote for moving.

It might be easier to move out.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.