Tenants rent apartments with the intentions of staying for the term of the lease, but sometimes the tenant has to break a lease for a variety of reasons.  Tenants break leases for financial, medical or business reasons.  The landlord is looking for the constant income and when the lease is broken, it causes problems for the landlord. 

The tenant should be honest with the landlord.  This would be the opportunity to try to negotiate with the landlord and terminate the lease.  The landlord has the right to report the tenant to the credit bureau, seek damages and place a lien on any remaining property in the tenement.

Do not leave the apartment without notifying the landlord.  There could be negative repercussions including damage to credit, blacklisting of tenants or payment of double or triple security/rent payments to compensate for damages.  The landlord would have the law on his or her side in this case.

Find someone to take over the lease. If the existing tenant can find a new tenant to pay for the remainder of the lease, it would allow the old tenant to get out of the lease and the landlord keeps the unit rented.  This secondary obligation is called a sublease and would be drawn up between the old tenant and the new tenant.  The landlord would not have to create a new lease contract unless desired.  The old tenant will be responsible for making sure the new tenant’s rent reaches the landlord since there is an existing lease.

Landlords break leases when they provide unsafe living conditions.  The tenant has to notify the landlord then dwelling is unsafe and must be repaired.  The notification should be in writing to protect the tenant.  The landlord has a certain amount of time to repair the problem or the tenant can break the lease.

If a tenant decides to break a lease, he or she should seek legal assistance before attempting to break a lease. 

Last 10 posts by Priscilla

• Breaking a Lease in Washington - February 6th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in West Virginia - February 6th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in New Jersey - February 6th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Rhode Island - February 6th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Vermont - January 14th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Nevada - January 11th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Wisconsin - January 10th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Utah - January 10th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Texas - January 7th, 2008
• Breaking a Lease in Pennsylvania - January 7th, 2008

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Breaking a Lease Laws, Landlord & Tenant Laws, Real Estate Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.