We have entered into an leave and license agreement for a period of 2 years beginning June 2022 and valid till May 2024. There is an lock-in-period of 6 months that is applicable to the agreement.
These are the exact words mentioned in the agreement:
10) Lock in period: Both the parties have agreed to set a lock-in period of 6 months during which neither the Licensor shall ask the licensee to vacate the premises, nor the licensee shall vacate the premises on his own during the lock-in period.In spite of this mandatory clause, if the licensee leaves the premises for whatsoever reason, he shall pay to the Licensor license fee for the remaining lock-in period at the rate of agreed upon in the agreement. On the other hand, Licensor shall compensate the Licensee for loss and inconvenience caused to the Licensee if he has been asked to vacate the premises.
11) Cancellation: That, Subject to the condition of lock in period (if any), if the Licensee commits default in regular and punctual payments of monthly compensation as herein before mentioned or commit/s breach of any of the terms, covenants and conditions of this agreement or if any legislation prohibiting the Leave and License is imposed, the Licensors shall be entitled to revoke and / or cancel the License hereby granted, by giving notice in writing of one month and the Licensee too will have the right to vacate the said premises by giving a notice in writing of one month to the Licensors as mentioned earlier.
The dispute is arising from a hike in the the maintenance charges by the co-operative society from April 2022 which the owner is insisting that we bear along with the arrears and the future payments over and above the monthly rental mentioned in the agreement. On our refusal to bear the unwarranted hike, the owner via email flatly refused to compromise and said in an online transcriptt that we can look for better options if we are not comfortable.
Now when we communicated that we would be vacating the premises by the end of the month, he is trying to force us into submission by bringing out the lock in period.
The question here is that:
1. What would be the legal recourse on our end if we vacate the premises on or before the date mentioned and refuse to hand over the keys to the owner unless he refunds the deposit amount?
2. If he takes legal recourse on the terms and the conditions of the agreement, how can we recover the amount of the security deposit?
We have been paying the rent on time and have not violated any terms of the leave and license agreement. Also we have paid rent for a period of 6 months from December 2021 to May 2022 during the pandemic without registering an agreement.
