When you sign a lease, you’re signing an agreement between you and the landlord/apartment management stating that you agree to stay in the unit for the terms stated in the lease. If you wish to leave before the term length expires, you are basically breaking the agreement. Often there are penalties associated with breaking an apartment lease. If you want to get out of an apartment lease, you need to be ready to pay some penalties or try to negotiate with the landlord.
Penalties: penalties vary from agreement to agreement. Some require you to pay the amount in full if you wish to leave (i.e. pay the entire term amount although you won’t be there for the entire time stated in the lease). Some will charge you a flat penalty fee. In any case, breaking a lease is not ideal. It will be a mark on your apartment rental history and it could make it harder for you to rent future apartments.
Negotiating Your Way Out: in some cases, you can talk with your landlord/apartment manager to get out of a lease penalty free. If you’re leaving because of poor conditions and you have evidence to back it up, you can state that the unit is not up to suitable living standards. If they state that the unit is fine when it’s clearly not, you can take it one step further and take them to court.
If you’re trying to break your lease because of a family emergency, new job, or some other reasonable reason, the landlord might have a heart and let you out of the lease without any penalties. It doesn’t hurt playing the “sad story” card.
Tim Jims has lived in tons of places across the US. So to help spread the word regarding his experiences, he writes about living in apartments. For more information on Woodland Hills apartments, visit http://www.avaloncommunities.com/.
