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A video has gone viral on TikTok after one woman shared how she was able to get out of a lease for her apartment in Hollywood, California.
User @iamjessvaladez posted a video to her followers this week, which has now been viewed over 190,000 times, that she was able to get out of her lease early after leaving a negative review on the apartment.
"[W]hen you leave such a negative review online about your new apartment that they offer to end your lease early without any fees [sic] my karen era has been unlocked and it is working in my favor," @iamjessvaladez, whose first name is Jess, wrote in text overlaid onto the video.
Trulia, an online real estate marketplace, said while getting out of a lease will not always be cheap, it is possible.
The landlord-tenant laws that allow for leases to be broken can vary by state, Trulia explained, and in many places, tenants can get out of leases for an assortment of reasons without penalty. Some of these reasons include incidents of domestic abuse, an unsafe environment or being called to the military.
Beyond those exceptions, tenants may still have the opportunity to break a lease though a landlord is allowed to impose a penalty.
"It could be a percentage of your remaining rent. At most, you could owe the remainder of your rent for the rest of the lease," according to Trulia. "If you don't pay it, you could face a lawsuit, a ding on your credit report, and the loss of your security deposit."
After posting the video this week sharing that she had been released from her lease without penalty one commenter asked Jess to share the review that apparently did the trick.
With the review set as the background to the view, Jess gave more "context" about what led her to share her grievances publicly in a follow-up video.
She said the mailroom in her building had been broken into resulting in multiple of her packages getting stolen. Additionally, she said she had not received a copy of her lease after sending "multiple emails."
At the start of the review, which she said was posted to apartmentratings.com, Jess wrote that she had only been living in the apartment for less than a month and that she'd wished she looked into the management more before moving in.
"Not only is the place unkept[sic] but the walls are extremely thin & my apartment is literally lopsided," she wrote.
She wrote that after the mailroom incident "all management said was they were going to review the cameras & 'maybe' change the mailroom code."
At the end of the review she issued a warning to anyone who might be looking at the building.
"Avoid this building at all costs, I'm trying to get out of here ASAP," she said.
Newsweek contacted Jess for comment.
