Landlord breaking the lease due to renovations. What are we entitled to?

By Hugh

Our landlord is breaking our lease three months in advance because they are remodeling the building (the lease runs until Aug.31 and they are asking us to move out by June 1). We are occupying the third floor of a three-apartment home and we were initially told that we could stay during the renovations to the lower floors (for a discounted rent–38%) and then move into the first floor, creating a new lease for September.
Now, the renovation seems to be much more than they had bargained for and are asking us to leave the building in three weeks to make deeper renovations than originally planned. They offered help with finding a sublet or a new place, but I would like to know what are our rights in this case, and what would we be entitled to. We started looking for other places and have made out a check for a realtor’s fee (there are close to zero apartments without a realtor at this point for June 1). Can we ask the landlord to shoulder this fee? Thanks!

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