Breaking the lease - how does it work ??

[Guest Dolphin68]

Hi everyone, we are moving to Adelaide in January 2012 and are wondering how it works in OZ when you break the lease. Do you have to pay both rents as long as you haven't found somebody else to take over the lease ?

Thanks for your help with this. Cheers

[Guest jan&andy]

Hi

 

We broke a lease 6 months into a 12 month contract and had to pay the rent until a new tenant was found as well as a portion of the advertising costs which was based on the portion of the lease left, in our case 50%. It was only a couple of hundred dollars, but may vary with the agent. We were lucky in that we advertised on here that we were breaking the lease and someone on the site actually took over the lease within a few days of us moving out. Hope this helps.

 

Jan

[Guest Dolphin68]

Hi Jan, thank you very much for your reply. This helps a lot. So it is actually similar to here in Switzerland except for the advertising costs. Just one more question, is it enough to just have one tenant who is able to pay the rent or does the landlord also need to accept the tenant. Cheers

[Guest tinkham_lee]

The landlord needs to accept the tenant, but they can't be fussy and reject them for poor reasons, as the Landlord/realestate have to do everything possible to mitigate loss to you, so if they can't re-rent it they need to drop price etc. If they reject a potential tenant you can complain to the tenancy tribunal that they are not trying to mitigate loss to you.

 

Lee

[catherine.c]

Just as an add on, when my daughter broke her lease she gave info of people that wanted to take it on but owners / agents were not interested and said it had to have an open

[Guest tinkham_lee]

Just as an add on, when my daughter broke her lease she gave info of people that wanted to take it on but owners / agents were not interested and said it had to have an open

Landlords/agents must consider every application (even if you find the tenants yourself and they don't hold an open). If she is still paying rent I would take it up with the tenancy tribunal.

[Guest BurgessFamily]

Also note that if they drop the price, you have to pay the difference for the remaining length of your lease. On the other hand, if they increase the price, they have to refund you the difference for the remaining length of the lease.

[Guest barkers18]

http://www.ocba.sa.gov.au/assets/files/e_bulletin_2.pdf

 

This is the OCBA info sheet on breaking a lease, it'll give you all the info you need.

 

The agent / landlord don't legally have to advertise or open the property until you have vacated, but once you have they have to be shown to have done everything reasonably to fill the property. You have to cover the rent until a new tenant moves in or to the end of your lease which ever is sooner. If they rent the property for more then you can claim that back against the costs or breaking the lease.