If a person wants to break a lease using fleas as a smokescreen charge them for doing so based on the terms of the lease so if he owes under the said terms let him pay and give you the requisite balances owing under the lease. Then also note to let him know that he has to pay the outstanding terms plus any fees your country may have for VAT & TAXES.

I have a problem where I have tenants who refuse to leave who have been refusing to leave for the past two months every time they have to leave and they refuse to pay and want to use funds like last month rent and security deposit to now be squatters. Also when and if we go to court they will try and say they cannot find a place and seek to try and continue rob me out of much needed income which I have not received from July from them. We had waived rent for August to pay them for contractual painting done by them in another unit which was wrong for us to get them used to do. Now the lady seeks to control so we told her to go from July 26th, 2018 and she then used her last month rent and now she is trying to use her security deposit and not leave the premises but seeks to torment us with loss of rent when she has her Mum five minutes away. It is not our fault she cannot find a place if that is indeed true why should we suffer loss of income from October to now well from September but she claimed that was her last month but refuses to leave and she is very troublesome and controlling. Our laws need to change. It is too protenant.

The money you receive from someone to hold an apartment should be considered a non-refundable deposit until they actually move in. Then afterwards, it can be applied to the first months rent. When you receive that non-refundable deposit, it should be strongly worded as a "non-refundable deposit" and never be considered or be referred to as "rent". Otherwise the tenant has recourse.

I know this is hindsight but wanted to share how I handle that process.

Glad you let them out.
Can you imagine the future headaches this tenant would cause?

Thank you all for the good advice. We kept the move in fee and allowed them to walk away. I did have pest control come out, no fleas but with that being said, customer service is everything and sometimes you have to make strong decisions. I love this site and how helpful everyone is in those gray areas!

Fleas are a dormant pest. Eggs could have been in the tack strip and just hatched. If padding wasnt replaced there goes your other issue. Just keep a good control plan with your exterminator and records. This will avoid the lease break. If they continue insisting then yes at that point, as long as you were on top of the situation, they are breaking their lease and should be chatged a fee. Because after all, you did everything possible to address the issue

I don't know. Never occupied, I'd talk with legal. Different states, different rules