Implications of breaking the lease?

[Guest guest9403]

Hi is there anyone who can tell me what happens if we want to break our lease? I only know of one other family who done it but theres was slightly different as they rented directly off the owner, we are with an agency??

[Willber]

Hi, its written in the small print of your lease. If you leave before your lease is up you are to pay for advertising costs, the rent until the lease ends or until the house is re-let. (i think) We are in a lease until 1/1/13 but the owner has decided to put it up for sale, so i read our lease to see if they can boot us out but they cant until 1/1/13.

[Guest shella_n]

We also has to pay the agency's cost of finding a new tenant which was 2 weeks rent Plus gst

[Toni]

The Office of Consumer and Business Affairs has this handy tip of what you can get charged for if you break your lease - it says that you have to honour the terms of the lease and it is only if the landlord agrees to the termination that you can proceed with breaking the contract. This is a link to the documentation from the OCBA that they provide (i.e. if the landlord has agreed) and there is a formula for what kind of costs you are up for including paying the rent until it is re-let again http://www.sa.gov.au/upload/franchise/Housing,%20property%20and%20land/OCBA/Claiming_for_costs_from_a_broken_lease_bulletin.pdf

[Guest guest9403]

Thanks for all the replies :-)...