No problem at all and best of luck! I'm sure it's been stressful and overwhelming. I hope it goes well for you.

As a follow-up, I looked more into the "limited penalties" and they are as follows:

> Under HCC section 17.1009(H),leases must state that tenants may terminate on 60 days written notice due to:

> * The death of a wage earner whose income was used to qualify for the lease, when confirmed by a death certificate.

> If you terminate the lease due to the above circumstances, you may be held liable for no more than two month's rent or actual damages whichever is less.

So absolute maximum, you'd owe two months of rent if you were to terminate your lease

It's still worth getting the Office of Consumer Protection involved because the landlord might be even more accommodating knowing that you know your rights and have the government involved - maybe they'll let you take a one-unit so you don't have to figure out housing in the meantime. Obviously I would hesitate to renew any lease with them again, but in the meantime it could save you from having to do an apartment search.

EDIT: I just read the legislation more closely and this is important so I wanted to put it at the top: the landlord-tenant law signed in 2018 states that as a tenant, one of your rights includes:

> You may terminate a lease early with limited penalties under certain special circumstances such as: unemployment or death of a tenant whose income was used to qualify for the lease, certain medical conditions, change of military posting, domestic violence or sexual assault.

As long as your friend was used to qualify for the lease, which sounds likely, you have the right to terminate the lease early with "limited penalties." Absolutely 100% bring the Office of Consumer Protection into this and enforce your rights.

ORIGINAL POST:

Sorry to hear about your friend. I know that must be really hard and doesn't make dealing with this situation any easier.

I'm sure you've considered some of this already, but have you looked into subletting or trying to get another roommate? Even if you have to offer somewhat discounted rent (e.g. $600 instead of $750), it might be a lot easier to cover an extra $150/month instead of $750/month.

You may want to look into reaching out to the Howard County Office of Consumer Protection; they offer landlord/tenant dispute resolution assistance. Here's a copy of some of the landlord-tenant law info from the Howard County Housing Commission, and a direct link to the Office of Consumer Protection.

They may be able to bring you and the landlord to mediation in a way that could give you time or some kind of break. You mentioned in a previous post that the landlord is a large corporation, so I'm not surprised they refused to let you switch to a one-bedroom when you asked...but they may be more pliable if you're asking and you've got the local government involved.

Sorry none of this is job-related, since I don't have any leads there, but I would definitely recommend trying to reach out and find out what rights and options you might have in this situation.

Since this is such a big deal breaker for you, I would suggest narrowing your search exclusively to Ellicott City and Columbia outparcels. There are a lot of lovely homes that are right on the edge of Columbia so you can easily use all the amenities and enjoy the general area. Columbia is a great place to live but you can get nearly the same experience living two miles away and not having to worry about your dogs.

I made the exact same move in 2013! Hope you're settling in and enjoying the area.

I've used them before and they were great.

https://www.raimondisflorist.com/locations_ellicott

Oh that's a shame! Sorry to hear that. Good luck finding somewhere that works for you!

I've been very happy with Capital Digestive Care, particularly Dr. Bijpuria. They were the easiest to schedule with, and they have offices in both Columbia and Laurel.

> Crime went down if you don’t consider illegally entering a country a crime.

That's just flat-out false. Howard County reports crimes in accordance with the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program. You can read the data collection guidelines for yourself.

Crime rates are an apples-to-apples comparison because they use the same standardized metrics. The crime reports are published online here and contain data from 2014 to present. Here's all of the data for you to see for yourself. Crime numbers, using the exact same standards year-to-year, are dramatically lower.

You're entitled to your opinion on immigration but bad-faith strawmen don't help your argument.

Howard County has done tree distribution programs for years. I have several mature trees in my yard from the 2010 distribution, and they were given away from 2017-2022, which includes both Republican (specifically, Kittleman) and Democratic executives.

What a weird thing to be mad about.