Advice on Breaking a Lease (VIC)

Hello,

We have bought a house. Bit random really, turned up to the auction for a sticky beak, property passed in, put in an offer after looking for about 10 minutes, offer accepted! We've been looking for about 12 months so know the market well and am confident it was a good buy.

We are currently renting our property and need to break our lease. Settlement on the new place is September 2 and we would like to give notice to vacate the property by COB September 5 (to give us time to clean etc). Our lease is due to expire on 21 January 2012.

I'm seeking some advice on how to move forward with this and any tips from anyone that has done it.

The Tenants Union of Vic fact sheet indicates that I should give as much notice as possible... I'm a bit nervous about this. What happens if the real estate agent finds tenants that want to move in prior to the date we have given that we will vacate the property? Do I have to move out? That would be a massive pain in the bottom! I'm concerned about giving too much notice, but at the same time I don't want to be paying rent for the property while it is vacant for too long. We are in an area of pretty high demand so I don't think it would be vacant for very long.

I'm aware we will have to pay reasonable fees including advertising costs and rent until the property is re-let. Is there anything else I should be aware of?

We've always paid rent on time and the property is in good condition so we won't have any hassles there.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Fiona

Congrats on your random house purchase!!! :lol:

I've broken a lease once - it was easy and didn't affect my rental history or anything like that.

I only had two or three months left I think and basically I faxed them a letter saying I would not be continuing the lease and that i'd found another property to move into and I'd like to end the lease early if possible.

Once it was on paper, we did everything over the phone, they initially told me I'd be liable for readvertising costs and that I may have to pay rent up until the end of the contract but they found a new tenant really quickly an I ended up moving earlier than I'd planned!

I'd send them a letter straight away - Sept isn't too far away - and say you'll be vacating Sept 5th (or whenever). Or maybe wait til say the start of July - that's 8wks or so. I don't think they can boot you out before then but the longer they have to advertise etc the better.

Oh and they never carried through on their threat to make me pay the advertising costs. I think because it was a high demand area too, it wasn't an issue.

Good luck!!

I know in NSW it changed last year and now if you break your lease you just forfeit your bond.

You need to give them a move out date, they can't put someone else in until you move out.

Im in QLD, so not sure how exactly the laws are different. But when I broke a lease start of last year it cost me, a 'lease break fee' - worth 1 weeks rent plus 10%, a 're-listing fee' for them to advertise the house again, and cover costs of them signing a new person. I also had to continue to pay rent until a new tenant moved in. All up, breaking the lease cost me nearly $2000.

We did the lease breaking earlier this year.

We told the agency when we wanted to move out, and the reason why. We were charged a lease breaking fee, and advertising fee and paid rent till our move out date (or till they get a tenant to move in).

Rentals are generally sought after especially in some VIC towns, so getting a new tenant shouldn't be hard. And if you let them know now for September, they have ample time to start advertising and sourcing possible tenants.

Best piece of advice I can offer, for a smooth lease breaking, is to be very accomodating with the RE agent. If they want 3 open houses to show the place off, do it. The more people who apply, the happier the house owner is, agent is, and ultimately it costs you less, as you have someone tee'd up to move in straight after you leave.

wE did this about two months ago

You are expected to pay to readvertise ( usually one weeks rent) and the lease fee for the new tenant ($15) AND RENT UNTIL THEY FIND A NEW TENANT.

They cannot legally charge you anymore and if you have a good agent or landlord chances are they wont charge you at all the extras....

Our landlord just asked us to pay rent until they found a tenant. The tenant ended up moving in the day after I moved out so it all worked out well

Also So you arent liable for septembers rent etc give them notice now. You can give 60 days notice i think to break a lease anyway therefore you wont be liable to any charges if you give enough notice.....

We did it when we bought our house, we'd only been in the rental about 4 months of a 12 month lease.
We had a pay a lease breaking fee and the advertising for the house to be released, and pay rent until the house was occupied again. thankfully it was let pretty quickly.
real estate had no issues with it, i'd say its a regular occurance.
Conratulations btw :)