Breaking a lease as a tenant
Hi,
I signed a contract for renting a room in Vancouver, BC. I also gave the deposit and paid some fees for move in and move out.
I don’t feel comfortable anymore renting that place and I want to cancel my agreement.
I haven’t move in yet. I still have two weeks to move in and I already notified the landlord that I changed my mind but he mentioned that he will hold all the money that I already paid for now (maybe like a security deposit) and if no one takes the room before the start of the lease I will have to cover the losses.
I was agreed to try to find someone to take my place, but when I asked for pictures to show the place he mentioned that I should used the pictures that I saw in the post of this place and change a little using chat GPT so market place doesn’t flag it as spam.
What is my best option in here? Or what should I do?
A friend said that I should talk with the Residential Tenancy Branch and I will, but being honest I got pretty scared about all what the landlord said of breaking the law and how bad this could get if I do things wrong, which I won’t. I just want to find the best way to solve this problem.
Worse scenario I think I could just move in there, hold as much as I can, take pictures myself and try to find someone to take my place. Is it a good idea?
If I don’t find someone I think I will have to stay there for a year as the contract says.