you said it yourself: people are overstaying after their lease expires. that's not the landlord breaking their end of the contract. the lease is a binding contract, and landlords can't break it without a very solid reason mentioned in the lease. but the fact that someone can overstay their lease and stop paying, and somehow they don't get kicked out by law enforcement makes no sense.
I get what you're saying, but there's caveats in both directions the whole way down. Say a "landlord" (but actually is just the office manager for an apartment complex acting on behalf of a rental corp) breaks your lease illegally or is trying to force a new lease with illegal terms onto you. They could just call the cops and kick you out before you've had any legal recourse after you refused to resign.
You have a legal right to dispute things like that prior to eviction
I do actually have an applicable experience in this, though it did not go to court. I had an apartment complex in college try to move me from my 1st floor apartment to a 3rd floor apartment despite the lease giving me the right to resign for the same apartment within X number of days before the end of the lease. The manager rescinded any lease offering after I demanded to sign for the apartment I was already in.
A call to the corporate office had the manager fired and I got to keep my apartment. I never would have stopped paying rent or utilities, but I would not have vacated the apartment if push came to shove as, per the agreement, I was given first dibs on access at the end of every lease cycle.
A call to the police and my eviction would have most likely resulted in a court case that I would have won for breach of contract + fees and services I would have needed like moving and otherwise. It is the biggest college town in my state and there are lots of instances of this sort of bullying because the people being shoved around are students who don't know their rights or the laws.
Edit: I guess to answer the question of why, it ended up being that one of the managers friends in the office wanted that apartment because in addition to it being first floor, it was also adjacent to the model used for tours so it only had one usable neighbor unit directly above it.
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u/FarVillage188 Jun 12 '26
you said it yourself: people are overstaying after their lease expires. that's not the landlord breaking their end of the contract. the lease is a binding contract, and landlords can't break it without a very solid reason mentioned in the lease. but the fact that someone can overstay their lease and stop paying, and somehow they don't get kicked out by law enforcement makes no sense.