Is There A Way To Break An Apartment Lease?
My brother has an apartment with a lease until July. He just became un-employed and is drawing unemployment. He wants to know if there is any way to get released from the lease given his current situation. He is not military nor does he work for the government where there are exceptions made for breaking leases under certain circumstances.
Inability to pay rent due to job loss is not a valid reason to break a lease agreement.
He has a couple of options–first, he needs to talk to the apt manager/landlord to explain the situation and see if he/she may have a suggestion. There may be a way he can do a lease buyout which would allow him to break his lease without penalty and still receive a neutral landlord reference. But if he is strapped for money, this may not be an option.
The other option he may have is to have someone take over his current lease. Again, this would be another topic he should discuss with the landlord because if he doesn’t know of anyone that can take it over, maybe the apartment complex can rent it out to someone who may be interested (they may even have a waiting list, you never know).
If he breaks the lease (i.e moving out without notice, failure to pay, etc.) not only will he owe any unpaid amounts from now until the end of his lease term, he will jeopardize his rental history by having a collection on his credit for an apartment community, as well as having an unfavorable landlord reference. It will be very hard for him to be approved for an apartment down the road with these blemishes on his record.
loss of income is not an acceptable excuse for breaking a lease—but as a Landlord I would rather let the tenant go and re-rent then get stuck for months of rent and have to evict someone. Talk to your lease holder about your situation—hopefully they will be logical and let you go rather then tell you that you are stuck.