Tenant Broke Lease South Carolina

[mdrosser]

A tenant signed a lease, gave first and last months rent plus security deposit.

When the tenant was suppose to go through the walk-through they did not show up.

The checks had a stop payment put on them and the tenant is not saying why she doesn't want to rent and gave no reason.

Do I have any legal recourse? One of my checking accounts is now overdrawn because of her stopped payments on the checks. I want to file a small claims suit but I have no idea how much to sue for.

The house is going back into the paper this weekend. Any help is appreciated.

You have an obligation to attempt to re-rent the unit. But the tenant has the obligation to give you the proper amount of notice to terminate. Plus, since she signed a lease, she owes the rent until it is re-rented and advertising costs. Additionally, she owes the overdraw fees since these were her fault for unlawfully stopping payment after she signed a legal contract. Get the place re-rented, tally all of the above costs, and sue her for that amount.

Yes. You can take her to small claims court to recover the money. Because she stopped payment on the checks and because she did not properly inform you of why she decided to both not rent the unit and stop payment on the check, your case is as good as: judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of (however much you are owed).

And yes, you can also sue her for the remainder of the lease, which means you can sue for however many months the lease stated she was to rent the unit for. At the very least, you can recover money for the time and expense of having to re-rent the unit after you already had a signed lease.

Sue for both first and last, and the security deposit. Bring the signed lease and copies of the stop payments/checks with you to court to show the judge. Good luck to you.