How to break the fortiguard?

Just how bad it is to break a lease?

• I might need to break a lease. For a good reason. Does this brand me forever as a Bad Renter who will forever be refused to rent anywhere else? Location: Austin, Texas. I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend, in a complex with 100-odd units. Unexpectedly, my daughter has just come to live with us (escalation of abuse and alcoholism by her dad, coupled with his agreement that things might be better for her back here where she grew up, 1500 miles away from him). She is 16 and really needs her own room, so we need to get a 2-bedroom unit asap. We were planning on getting a 2-bedroom anyway, this will just be moving up our schedule. (A very close friend (more like a godmother / 3rd parent to her) will let her spend some nights at her place in the interim, so we will not go stir crazy the whole time until we find a new place.) The complex here has said that on June 30th, 6 months into my lease (which ends 12/31), we are eligible to move into a 2-bedroom unit here, as a transfer, with only a $50 higher deposit, a pet fee (one cat), and having to sign a new lease. The lease can be as short as 6 months if we would like, but the rent will be $10 higher for every month under the length of the typical 12-month lease term. We can afford it and it sounds like it would be a fairly painless transition. Then at the end of the year we can find a different place. But the initial 2-bedroom unit they said would be available soon, July 1st, is in an unsuitable location way too close to the playground, and there are many small children underfoot all around it. No go. When we went and looked at the location, my boyfriend expressed that he doesn’t like this complex / neighborhood in general anyway and would prefer to break the lease and move somewhere else. The place is ok but not stellar, but has a fair amount of pluses, including being conveniently located (nice neighborhood to go walking / running in, shops / restaurants nearby, easy freeway access, and I can handle the commute ok). Also the apartment management seems good and they get things fixed in a timely fashion. Breaking the lease, from what I gather, means that I have to give a lot of notice (I think 60 days), have to pay a “reletting fee” of $600, and am on the hook for the rent until they lease the unit again. Not sure how hard it would be for them to find a renter. My unit does have nicer cabinets / fixtures than other units, so I think it would compare favorably to other units in the complex once we’re out of it and they can show this specific unit. It also has a good array of parking spots nearby, including a few right outside the door. However. I fear that if we break the lease, we will have to list this on our rental history everywhere else we apply for an apartment, forever, and no one will rent to us. We will be branded Bad Renters, and nobody wants to lease to someone known for breaking leases. I remember having to answer questions like “Have you ever broken a lease / left before the full lease term anywhere else?” on the standard applications used around here (Texas Apartment Association, which is the only kind of application / lease I can remember filling out, having lived in several different complexes in the area). So how legitimate is my fear? We have a genuine-need-type explanation, unexpected moving in of child in a very crisis situation, but how much benefit of the doubt do you think we would get given the situation? Will we be branded for life, though, essentially? I worry about it coming up over and over, even years down the line, since I would have to answer “Have you EVER?” with a “Yes, we broke a lease” and offering our explanation, every time. Relying on the goodwill and understanding of every single future place I would ever want to live really scares me. I don’t want to be apartment-hunting with this hanging over our heads, making me feel like we would lose out on great places we want because leasing offices wouldn’t want to bother with us, the notorious Lease Breakers. The housing market here is really tight, which makes things worse. I don’t want an uphill battle every single time. If the situation would be truly dire if we break the lease, and the complex here can find us a unit in a better location (facing the parking lot would probably be fine, and they told me to call them this weekend to find out what else will be available soon), then maybe that would be the best path. I need boyfriend’s buy-in on this plan, so I am trying to gather information on just how bad it would be to break the lease. I have never broken a lease, so this is really uncharted territory for me. So how bad would it be? I think this might really depend on market - we are in Austin, Texas, in the Northwest 183 area, and would like to stay living in roughly this area, in an apartment complex rather than a condo rental or somesuch.

• Answer:

  Nah, generally as long as you do everything you're required to (ie paying the lease and being on the hook for rent) it's not a black mark at all. Generally you don't have to disclose anything or wind up on any lists unless your landlord has to take you to court.