If I find other tenants who take over the rental property immediately after I have left it, can I prepare a document with the parties involved that will invalidate my severance payment?

Answer

Dear Sylvia,

I am able to deduce from your question that it concerns the rent of your main residence that you canceled in the first three-year period (explains the severance payment that you owe in accordance with art. 3, §5 Housing Rental Act). Since the Housing Rental Act applies to the contract in question, you should always bear in mind that the provisions of that law are mandatory, unless otherwise provided (Art. 12 Housing Rental Act). So only where the Housing Rental Act clearly provides this, can the provisions of that law be deviated from.

Contractual agreements that conflict with the provisions of the Housing Rental Act are sanctioned with relative nullity. The term ‘relative’ indicates that nullity can only be invoked by the party whose interests the legislator aims to protect. Although the Housing Rental Act aims in most cases to protect the tenant (eg by giving him the right to terminate at any time), the interests of the landlord are also not lost sight of. One of those protection mechanisms in favor of the lessor consists precisely in granting him a flat-rate severance payment if the lessee terminates during the first three-year period. Since that provision is mandatory and protects the interests of the lessor in the event of early termination by the lessee, the lessor cannot waive that protection until the case has been brought to court.

In short, even if you conclude an agreement with the landlord in which he waives his right to demand a severance payment in accordance with art. 3, §5 Housing Rental Act, he will still be able to invoke the mandatory nature of the Housing Rental Act and invoke the nullity of any prior agreement in which he waives the protection afforded to him by the Housing Rental Act.