Lease Ends in August but You Leave in May: Your Options

Work Out Your Gap

Two dates matter: the day you leave and the last day of your lease. Count the rent payments in between.

• Leave mid-May, lease ends July 31: about two and a half months. $1,850 times 2.5 is $4,625.
• Leave mid-May, lease ends August 31: about three and a half months. $1,850 times 3.5 is $6,475.
• Leave June 1, lease ends August 31: three months. $1,850 times 3 is $5,550.

Summer Sublet Versus an Empty Room

Take the three-month case. Leave the room empty and you pay $5,550 for nothing.

Sublet at $1,700 for all three months and you take in $5,100. You still pay your landlord $5,550, so the gap costs you $450.

Now the cautious version. The room is empty in June and fills for July and August at $1,700. That is $3,400 in, so you are out $2,150. Still less than half of $5,550.

Nobody can promise a subtenant. But the comparison is between some of the rent back and none of it.

• How Much to Charge for a Sublet

Are You Coming Back in the Fall

This decides how to set it up.

If you are renewing and returning, it is a plain summer sublet. Your things can stay, your subtenant leaves before you are back, and the room is yours again.

If the lease ends and you are not renewing, the sublet runs to the last day of the lease and no further. Someone has to empty the room, return the keys and hand the apartment back in the condition the lease requires. Decide now whether that is you flying back, a roommate, or a friend.

• Leaving Before Your Lease Ends

Get Approval and List Early

In buildings with four or more apartments, New York Real Property Law 226-b gives you the right to ask to sublet, and the landlord may not unreasonably refuse. The written request goes by certified mail with the dates, your subtenant’s name and a copy of the sublease. The landlord has 30 days to answer.

1. March: read the lease and tell your roommates.
2. March or April: list with exact dates and daylight photos.
3. April: choose someone and send the request.
4. Early May: written answer, signed sublease, keys.

Get your landlord’s written approval before anyone moves in. An email that says yes is good. A text or a verbal okay is hard to prove later.

• When to List Your Sublet
• Sublet Your Apartment for the Summer

Who Wants a Room for the Summer

Plenty of people need a short summer stay in New York: interns, students taking summer classes, and people trying the city before signing a year-long lease. A listing that covers the whole of June to August matches more of them than a few odd weeks.

On Sublet Buddy you can type rough notes about the room and get a draft listing to edit, and the public listing shows the neighborhood, not your address.

When you choose a subtenant, ask only about the stay: dates, ability to pay, references, pets, smoking and schedule. In New York City it is illegal to choose or refuse someone because of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship status, disability, family status, marital status, age, lawful source of income or another protected trait.

• Summer Sublets
• List Your Place

If the Lease Ends and Nobody Is There

When the lease ends during the sublet, plan the last week before you leave in May.

1. Agree in the sublease that the subtenant leaves by the last day of your lease, with the room empty of their things.
2. Move your own belongings out in May, or arrange who collects them.
3. Ask your landlord how keys are returned and whether there is a move-out inspection.
4. Give the landlord a forwarding address for your security deposit.
5. Take dated photos in May, and ask your subtenant or roommate for photos on the last day.

• What to Do with Your Stuff When You Sublet
• NYC Security Deposit Rules