We're moving my father to an assisted living facility.  He's been in
an apartment for about 6 months.  He signed a one year lease in April.
 He has doctor documented dementia and has entered an assisted living
facility out of state. Apartment manager won't bend on lease
termination clause (60 days plus an additional $1200-net $3,300).  My
offer of a reasonable compromise was refused.

Is Arizona one of the limited states that allow lease termination due
to transfer to assisted living?
If I refuse to pay and let the landlord make their best effort to
recover from my father (now located in New York State), as my father's
Attorney in Fact do I have any personal financial obligation?

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 30 Sep 2005 17:18 PDT

drpepper...

I live in AZ, and located a service which refers people to assisted
living facilities called CallRN:
http://www.callrn.com/

The office manager referred me to Chuck Bongiovanni, an MSW who
currently works with them as a consultant, who worked for years
actively moving people into assisted living facilities. He gave
me permission to cite his name in this answer, and assured me
that he has run into your situation hundreds of times and that
the law is definitely on your side, should it go to court.

He noted that the law requires that a letter from the doctor,
documenting your father's inability to continue living safely
on his own should be presented to the landlord as justification
for the early termination of the lease.

Unfortunately, neither he nor any of the offices I called were
able to provide me a concrete reference for the applicable law.

I called the Attorney General's office at (602) 542-5263, and 
was referred to the Landlord Tenant Issues Community Legal
Services, who, as I thought, informed me that the lawyers are
not available for consultation over the phone. This service
provides free legal services for low income residents in the
area of Landlord Tenant Issues. The lady I spoke with then
referred me to The Secretary of State's website and phone
numbers, all of which have recordings referring to the website
which documents the Residential Landlord & Tenant Act:
http://www.azsos.gov/public%5Fservices/publications/residential%5Flandlord%5Ftenant%5Fact/2004/landlord%5Fact.htm

The Landlord & Tenant Act is Chapter 10 of Title 33 of the 
Arizona Revised Statutes, which can be found and searched here:
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp?Title=33

Searching those didn't reveal any documentation specific to
your situation, so I'm sure it amounts to a matter of legal
interpretation which is not available without legal consultation.

There is some indication that refusing to terminate the lease
might come under the heading of discrimination against an 
elderly person with a mental disability, as hinted at in this
PDF on the HUD USER site, but this is just conjecture on my part:
http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/DDS_Testing_Guidance.pdf

Finally, I located the Phoenix City Government, Landlord and
Tenant Problems phone number - (602) 262-7210, but called just
at 5pm, and received no answer. Nonetheless, I didn't want to
delay posting this information.

Given that I wasn't able to locate a concrete citation for 
what you're seeking (which may not be possible without legal
consultation), I will not post this as an answer until you 
indicate that it has satisfied your needs.

Let me know where this takes you...

sublime1-ga