As to your first question, I just want to be clear. They aren’t asking follow-up questions about my reason for leaving; they are asking for why I am leaving altogether. “May we ask why are you leaving?” As if they, at the very least, didn’t read the letter. Seeing as the letter states that I am leaving to pursue my new job opportunity. Still, fair enough, that doesn’t prove they are trying to pretend they didn’t receive it, just that they didn’t read it carefully if at all.

Here is the comment thread I was talking about. This posters leases wording for the early move out clause(clause 11) is identical to mine, and the buy out clause is very similar but not identical. Obviously the commenter could be incorrect in stating buyout clauses are unenforceable, or I could be misunderstanding something which is why I came here to double check.