Published guides, checklists, and practical analysis for lease termination.
10 published articles in this topic.
Lease TerminationQuick answer Moving out and legally ending a lease are not always the same event. Before giving notice, identify whether the tenancy is fixed term or periodic, read the termination and assignment clauses, check whether a statutory exit applies, price the realistic financial exposure, and put any neg
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Lease TerminationQuick answer The strongest lease termination file is built before the keys are returned. Save the signed lease and addenda, proof of every notice, the landlord's responses, payment history, records of any replacement tenant effort, move out condition evidence, key return proof, forwarding address, a
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Lease TerminationQuick answer For early termination, do not search the lease for only the words “break lease.” Read the term, notice, surrender, default, acceleration, liquidated damages, concessions, assignment/subletting, replacement tenant, deposit, guaranty, and attorney fee provisions together. Then compare the
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Lease TerminationQuick answer Treat early lease termination as a controlled handoff, not a single notice. The process has eight checkpoints: classify the tenancy, identify the legal/contract route, calculate a range, make a written proposal or valid notice, manage replacement tenant activity, document move out, clos
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Lease TerminationQuick answer The cost of leaving a lease early is not automatically “all remaining rent,” and it is not automatically “the deposit.” Build the number from separate components: rent already due, contractually stated termination or liquidated damages amounts, any lawful concession recapture, proven pr
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Lease TerminationQuick answer The most expensive early termination mistakes usually come from sequencing, not bad luck: moving before reading the lease, using the wrong notice, assuming the deposit is the last month's rent, relying on verbal releases, mishandling a replacement tenant, ignoring mitigation evidence, o
Read article →Lease TerminationQuick answer “I need to move before the lease ends” is not a legal category. The reason, tenancy type, lease wording, jurisdiction, and available evidence can produce very different routes. The three hypothetical cases below show why a job relocation, a safety based statutory exit, and a landlord br
Read article →Lease TerminationQuick answer New York and British Columbia both recognize that a tenant's early departure can create financial consequences and both use mitigation concepts, but the legal architecture is different. BC has a province wide Residential Tenancy Act and Residential Tenancy Branch framework with detailed
Read article →Lease TerminationQuick answer Do not use one “lease cancellation letter” for every situation. A request for mutual termination, a replacement tenant proposal, an itemized account request, and a final settlement checklist each serve different purposes. The templates below are drafting aids only; if a statute requires
Read article →Lease TerminationQuick answer Early lease termination has no one size fits all answer. The reliable sequence is: identify the tenancy type, read the lease, check the actual jurisdiction, determine whether a statutory exit or mutual agreement applies, calculate exposure with mitigation, and document move out and fina
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