What is the down side to breaking a rental lease?

Know the cons about breaking a lease before you do so and you will often be able to make a more informed decision about whether breaking your lease is a good one.

When you signed your lease, you signed a legally binding contract. One of the obligations that you agreed to was the obligation to pay rent for a certain period of time (usually one year). If you break a lease early then you are obligated to pay the remainder of the rent for the rest of the year (or whatever period you agreed to in the lease). For example, let's say you break a lease after four months into the tenancy. You would legally owe another eight months of rent to the landlord. Let's say you are paying $850 a month in rent. Your legal liability would be $6,800. Ouch!

Wait, there's more. If you don't pay that amount, your landlord may report this $6800 as an unpaid debt to a credit bureau so that this amount shows up on your credit history. Your landlord may also take you to court in order to get a judgment against you for this amount and then attempt to collect it from you. After obtaining the judgment against you, the landlord may resort to garnishing your wages, putting a lien on your house, garnishing your bank account, or other means in order to collect the judgment.

Generally, landlords are not too happy when a tenant breaks a lease. Your landlord may also provide a negative reference to other landlords who are checking your rental history. So if you are trying to rent another apartment, the going may get rough if your former landlord is providing poor references.

In an effort to get back at you for breaking the lease prematurely, your landlord may also charge you for damages that did not exist. Many renters find this hard to believe but it happens all the time. Landlords know that most tenants, after being sued, will not show up to court to contest the damages.

You may owe more than just unpaid rent if you break your lease. Many leases contain clauses allowing the landlord to collect re-rental fees, advertising fees, turnover fees, early termination fees, and even possibly attorney fees, when a tenant wrongfully breaks a lease.

You may also lose your security deposit in such situations. Most landlords will apply your security deposit to the unpaid rent for the remaining months on the lease.

So before you break your lease, make sure you know the down side to doing so.

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