New York is a city full of renters, so many people who have been displaced by Hurricane Sandy are grappling with leases, landlords and questions about whether they should pick up and move on — and whether they can even afford to.

“Even a few days of being here without a place to live, the cost can be astronomically high,” said Conway Anderson, whose apartment building at 2 Gold Street in Manhattan is expected to be uninhabitable for months.

Perhaps the most pressing question for renters whose homes were most badly damaged by the storm — inflicted with structural damage, or doomed to be without heat, water or electricity for months — is whether they can break their lease.

Though every case is different, real estate lawyers, including Stuart M. Saft of Holland & Knight, and Steven R. Wagner of Wagner Davis P.C., say that if an apartment is going to be uninhabitable for a long time, a tenant should be able to break the lease and recover the security deposit. Even if the lease gives a landlord a 30-day cushion to make repairs, most landlords are unlikely to go after tenants who decide to move out sooner, one expert said.