A tenant entered into a one-year lease with a landlord for a residential apartment, agreeing to pay rent on the first of each month. After three months, the tenant vacates the apartment without notifying the landlord and ceases paying rent. The landlord does not make any effort to re-let the apartment for four months and then sues the tenant for unpaid rent for the entire lease term. Under modern landlord-tenant law, what is the landlord most likely entitled to recover?
The landlord may lose entitlement to unpaid rent if the lease is formally terminated by the tenant's abandonment.
Rent for the months the landlord made reasonable efforts to re-let the apartment.
Rent based on the length of the lease and the tenant's early departure.
Use of the security deposit as a portion of unpaid rent recovery.
Under modern landlord-tenant law, a landlord has a duty to mitigate damages by making reasonable efforts to re-let the apartment if the tenant abandons the lease early. The correct answer reflects this duty and limits the landlord's recovery to unpaid rent during the time the apartment was vacant, provided the landlord made reasonable efforts to re-let it. Other answers are incorrect because they either overstate the landlord's entitlement by ignoring the mitigation duty, misrepresent the legal treatment of lease abandonment, or misunderstand the limited function of a security deposit.
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What does it mean for a landlord to mitigate damages?
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What factors determine what constitutes 'reasonable efforts' to re-let an apartment?
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What happens to a tenant's security deposit when they vacate early?