My spouse and I had a recent death in the family a few weeks ago, and we have to move home to take care of folks. We gave our landlord 30 days notice on this, and requested an exit to the lease agreement. However, they responded by saying that not only do they not permit lease breaking, but they want us to pay the rent of the apartment until it is rerented.

For clarification, we live in Oregon, where the Bar states about tenant abandonment that if a tenant has left the building for 30 days, they are not to be charged more than 1.5x monthly rent. We’re more than happy paying that amount, as that’s standard for breaking a lease.

Any help would be gladly appreciated. Neither of us are quite versed in apartment legal affairs, let alone standard legal affairs. It’s been very frustrating to go back and forth with the landlord, when I believe they’re clearly in the wrong.