breaking a lease

My roommates and I moved into an apartment last June,
we signed a year long lease, but we want to break our
lease and move in April. Our apartment has plumbing
problems (dirty water from the second floor constantly
leaks onto or bathroom ceiling, creating mold, stains,
and collapsing some of our ceiling tiles), draft
problems, electric problems, hot water/cold water
problems etc. We have sent numerous letters to our
landlord complaining about these problems and nothing
has been done, 2 months ago we had a housing
inspection and 6 violations were found, and nothing
was fixed, we withheld rent for February and march and
we were never contacted about anything. We just sent
a letter to our landlord asking to be released from
the lease, and now he wants to meet with us the "work
something out", he claims that there is no court in
the world that would allow us to break our lease. So,
would we be able to legally break our lease?

[judg4]

It is permitted to break the lease (or sue for the decreased lease value in small claims) if they have failed to comply with the lease and/or there are health, noise or safety concerns--but save all information, evidence etc. in case they dispute the situation and try to take you to small claims court.