What's the best way to break a rental lease?

My husband and I recently bought an apartment and we will have to break our lease early on our rented apartment. Our landlords are really amazing people but I'm nervous about breaking the lease. We live in an area where it shouldn't be too hard to get the place rented out again and I'd be willing to help them rent it out. We need to be out in a month. What's the best way to talk to them about it? What's the best way to break a rental lease?
The best way to talk to them about it is face to face. Call the landlords and set up a time to meet.





Before beginning any conversation, understand that the landlord can legally hold you liable for the rent until either a replacement tenant is found or your lease expires AND any penalties spelled out in the lease. The landlord can also legally hold you liable for any costs that they may incur due to your breach, such as advertisement costs, etc. Realize that the landlord has the upperhand and can dramatically affect your rental and credit histories for years.





The landlord has no obligation to allow you to break the lease without any cost to you.





You have three choices in this situation:





1. Offer to pay to advertise the rental - you'd be liable anyway. Offer to have the rental in show worthy condition and allow showings as often as needed in order to get a replacement tenant as soon as possible. Offer to stay until the replacement tenant can move in. This way, the landlord suffers no loss of rent, you are not paying for a place in which you do not live and all you are out is the advertising costs. Your credit and rental histories will not be affected.





2. Negotiate a lease buyout with the landlord. Start by offering the amount equal to 2 months rent. The landlord may require another month. If you come to an agreement, get it in writing. This way your liabilities end with the lump sum payment. This is a clean break. Your rental and credit histories will not be affected.





3. Move out without any agreement. The landlord can hold you liable for the rent until either the lease expires or a replacement tenant is found. The landlord can hold you liable for any costs he incurs due to your breach, such as advertising costs, agent fees, etc.





If you do not pay the amounts above, the landlord can sue you. The judgment will include not only the costs mentioned, but court costs and accrued interest until the judgment is paid.





Your rental and credit histories will be ruined. The judgment can be renewed for up to 20 years and the landlord can garnish wages or bank accounts, place liens on (future) personal property, etc.





Future landlords will deny renting to you due to the unpaid judgment. Many employers check credit, so you can be scrutinized for having the open judgment against you. Insurance companies and other creditors pull credit and adjust your rates dependant on your credit, so you will be paying higher rates for many years.





You cannot sublet unless the landlord gives you permission to do so.





Subletting can be a bad idea, because you are essentially the subtenants landlord and remain liable to your landlord for the entire lease term. If your subtenant fails to pay rent, damage the place or default in some other way, you are responsible to evict them. You are still responsible to pay your landlord any rent or damages owed. You then have to sue your subtenant to collect from them.





What's the best way to break a rental lease?
You have to read your lease..some leases have provisions to break the lease, some do not.





The lease will spell out how much notice you need to give (most leases require a 60 day notice to break a lease), plus penalties on top of that.





If there is no provision, then you have to ';pay out'; the rest of the lease...the landlord is not required by law to break the lease.





The landlord can also not ';double dip';...for example, if they required a 60 day notice, you pay them for the 2 months, if you move out in a month and they find a renter...then they owe you money for that second month.
I suggest you tell them about the situation and offer to pay for the costs of finding new tenants. If they rent it out before you move, then you are done. If they do not, you could be on the hook for rent until they lease the place.