Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Ohio

In Ohio, if you can show the court that you and your landlord entered into a verbal agreement for a surrender of the apartment (meaning that you would leave early if he would not sue you for the remainder of the lease) and if you can show the court that you met the terms of the surrender agreement, then he cannot sue you for the future rent due through the end of the lease agreement.

Further, even if you did breach the lease agreement, you can argue in the Answer that you file with the court that he has "failed to mitigate damages" meaning that he is not trying to rent it out to someone else in your absence, but rather is just sitting back and trying to sell the place on the one hand while collecting rent from you on the other.

In Ohio, once he gets service of process on you (which happens when the court sends out a copy of the lawsuit to you) then you will need to file an Answer within 28 days (unless he is suing you in small claims court. In that case, you just show up and argue the case: 1) that you had a verbal surrender agreement that you complied with and/or 2) that he is not mitigating his damages. On the mitigation of damages issue, you will have the burden of proof so you will want to go by the property and take a picture or two showing that there is no "for rent" sign out front. If the place is listed with a realtor then it is likely on realtor.com and you can print out the website showing the property information to show the judge that he is trying to sell it rather than rent it. Further, during cross examination after he testifies you can ask him what efforts he has made to re let the premises to someone else. Lastly you can bring in local news papers showing that he has not listed it in the classified ads as being for rent.