1.4.3 Termination by the Tenant

Generally, absent contrary agreement, a month-to-month tenant may terminate the lease by giving the landlord written notice 10 days prior to the end of the current rental month, unless the lease requires a longer notice period.1  At the end of a year-term lease, the required minimum notice period is 30 days.2  Tenants with fixed-term leases may only terminate the lease prior to the expiration of the term for reasons provided in the lease, the Civil Code, or other applicable laws.3

If a landlord fails to perform (i.e., fails to fulfill the obligations required by the Civil Code), a tenant may be able to terminate a lease extrajudicially in accordance with the rules applicable to contracts in general.4  These rules require that the tenant demand that the landlord fulfill the obligations under the lease within a reasonable time5  and that the tenant place the landlord in default, generally by written notice.6  Under limited circumstances a tenant may terminate a lease without notice to perform.7  Because unilateral dissolution of a contract is undertaken at the dissolving party’s own risk and because a lease cannot be dissolved for minor violations of the lease, a court may still side with a landlord who maintains that the requirements for extrajudicial dissolution were not satisfied (i.e., the landlord did not fail to perform and/or the procedures for notice and placing in default were not followed). As such, extrajudicial dissolution of a lease by a tenant puts the tenant at risk of a suit for rent due under the remainder of the lease. More commonly, a landlord will report a debt straight to a collection agency without suing and include an “early termination fee” or other penalty that may be inappropriate or illegal under the circumstances. Landlords have an obligation to mitigate their damages when a tenant terminates their lease early.8

Grounds for a tenant to dissolve a lease may include:

• Landlord’s failure to maintain the apartment in a habitable condition.9
• Landlord’s failure to make necessary repairs, depending on each party’s fault or responsibility, the length of repair period and the extent of the loss of use.10
• Landlord’s failure to maintain tenant in peaceable possession.11
• Landlord’s substantial violation of lease.12
• Fraudulent misrepresentations about neighborhood safety.13

In addition to landlord breach, a tenant may terminate a lease early for the following reasons:

• Total destruction of premises by fire, flood, or other force majeure.14
• Partial destruction or substantial impairment of use by fire, flood, or other force majeure.15
• Verbal agreement (despite written term lease) allowing tenant to cancel at any time.16
• Certain military orders to relocate.17
• Tenant’s disability which requires early termination.18
• Domestic violence or sexual assault.19

• 1La. C.C. art. 2728.
• 2Id.
• 3La. C.C. art. 2718.
• 4La. C.C. art. 2719.
• 5La. C.C. art. 2015.
• 6La. C.C. art. 1991 (identifying methods of placing an obligor in default).
• 7
• 8La. C.C. art. 2002.
• 9Freeman v. G.T.S. Corp., 363 So. 2d 1247 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1978).
• 10La. C.C. arts. 2693, 2719.
• 11Essen Dev. v. Marr, 95-1344 (La. App. 1 Cir. 11/30/95), 687 So. 2d 98 (other tenant’s barking dog rendered premises uninhabitable).
• 12La. C.C. art. 2719.
• 13Borne v. Edwards, 612 So. 2d 219 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1992).
• 14La. C.C. art. 2714
• 15La. C.C. arts. 2693, 2715; Bossier Ctr., Inc. v. Palais Royal, Inc., 385 So. 2d 886, 890 (La. App. 2 Cir. 1980). But see Eubanks v. McDowell, 460 So. 2d 42, 44 (La. App. 1 Cir. 1984) (finding that flood damage that took 4 days to repair was “mere injury” and not “partial destruction.”).
• 16Harper v. Gorman, 96-513 (La. App. 5 Cir. 04/29/97), 694 So. 2d 1094.
• 17La. R.S. 9:3261; 50 U.S.C. § 500.
• 1842 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(b) (requiring reasonable accommodation of tenant’s disability); Samuelson v. Mid-Atl. Realty Co., 947 F. Supp. 756 (D. Del. 1996). If a disabled tenant can no longer use the apartment because it has become inaccessible, the landlord should allow early termination as an accommodation.
• 19La. R.S. 9:3261.1 (domestic violence); La. R.S. 3261.2 (sexual assault); 34 U.S.C. § 12491 (Violence Against Women Act; applies only to federally subsidized tenancies). Note that the Louisiana statutes do not apply to all dwellings.