Lease breaking services start with a strategy session of up to an hour. This session costs $295.00.

After your strategy session with the lawyer, you will have the option to move on to a full lease termination. Typically, a termination is one month of rent, minus the strategy session fee you already paid, subject to a minimum of $1,650.00.

As a for-profit business, we do not get grants or government funding. Thus, in order to pay our workers and support our families we have to charge for the only thing we have to sell, our time. We offer the strategy session as an affordable unbundled service that we believe offers good value even to those that cannot afford full representation.

If you cannot afford a lawyer at all and have very low income, legal aid may offer free advice - though I do not believe they offer lease breaking services.

There is no obligation or pressure to retain our services beyond the initial strategy session. For many tenants, the time on the phone with a lawyer is all they need to get their questions answered and set them on the right track.

Yes, hiring a lawyer to break a lease is not required. Tenants can simply move out and stop paying rent. However, landlords are more aggressive in pursuing unrepresented tenants and, if they sue, the tenant will have no defense if they did not jump through all the hoops mandated by federal, state, and local law. Terminating a lease without a lawyer is very risky and we cannot usually salvage a case a tenant already messed up. 

If a tenant simply moves out of an apartment turns over the keys, and stops paying rent, there are pretty significant financial consequences. Under the law, the tenant owes the landlord all lost rent, plus reasonable marketing expenses, plus (in most jurisdictions) reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred to collect the lost rent and marketing expenses from the abandoning tenant.

No, terminating a lease early is never risk free. Even in cases where termination grounds are the strongest, the landlord could still sue the tenant. By working with a professional, the tenant understands their risks, bolsters their defenses, and make it far less likely that the landlord takes adverse action against the tenant.

Leases can be terminated very quickly, we have even done one-day turnarounds before. That said, a rush-job is not ideal and a very short timeline can take some grounds and defenses off the table. Starting the process at least two weeks before intended move-out is best.

The legally available grounds to break a lease vary based on where the apartment is located. The most universally available grounds are unlivable conditions including infestations, flooding, fires, code violations, mold, lack of essential services, extreme harassment, ect.  Additionally, domestic violence, including threats of violence from roommates, give grounds for termination state-wide. Likewise, federal law mandates that servicemembers are allowed to terminate if they get change of station orders and take the proper steps. Moreover, landlords are not allowed to rent unpermitted units (often basement conversions) anywhere in the state.

If the unit is located in Cook County, both the Cook County Municipal Code and City of Chicago Ordinance provide many other grounds for termination including lack of mandatory notices and disclosures, retaliation, conditions problems, unlawful entries, and others.

When people hire us to break a lease we first conduct a full risk analysis during the strategy session. If the tenant is comfortable with the risks and desires to move forward with a termination, we instruct the tenant to find a new apartment and prepare for move-out based on the appropriate timeline. Once the tenant is ready, we send a notice or series of notices to the landlord asserting the grounds for termination, notifying the landlord how and when the tenant will vacate, and directing the landlord to communicate with our office rather than the tenant directly.

Once the landlord receives the notice, there are a number of possibilities. Many landlords just accept the termination, do not respond at all and the tenant moves out without ever hearing from the landlord again. In other cases, the landlord opens dialog with us and attempts to negotiate a settlement. Less commonly, the landlord will threaten to sue the tenant and we will have to further explain the grounds to the landlord and convince them that litigation would be costly and unproductive. Finally, a small percentage of landlords will make good on their threat to file a lawsuit, after which the tenant will either need to settle or defend the lawsuit. Fortunately, the percentage of terminations that results in a lawsuit is small and those where the tenant only has a weak defense is even smaller.

Infestations are one of the most common grounds used to break a lease. If a tenant's unit is infested with rodents, roaches, bedbugs, bats, or other pests, and the landlord is not taking reasonable actions to exterminate, the lease can usually be terminated. Tenants should make sure to document the infestation with pictures and videos and, ideally, should start working with an attorney to send the appropriate notices to the landlord before terminating the lease early.

Yes, Illinois has a state-wide statute that allows the victims of domestic violence to terminate their lease early. Unfortunately, the notice and timing requirements of the law are extremely complex, so it is important for the tenant to get professional help to exercise their rights.

There is not a "penalty" for breaking a lease, even without grounds. So, when a tenant refers to a penalty, they are likely referring to either a buy-out fee or breach of contract damages. 

Some leases, especially those with large cooperate landlords, have a buy-out clause that allows a tenant to terminate their lease if certain conditions are met. Typically, buy-out clauses contain both a notice provision and a buy-out fee. The most common clauses I come across require 2 months' notice and a buy-out fee of two or three months of rent. Thus, if a tenant desires to move out immediately, they end up paying 4-5 months of rent (notice period plus buy-out fee). 

If a tenant breaks a lease without grounds or with grounds but without taking the legally required steps to terminate, the tenant is liable to the landlord for the landlord's financial losses, this is called breach of contract damages. Breach of contract damages include lost rent, reasonable marketing expenses, and (usually) attorney's fees and costs. Though there is a lot of seasonal and other variation in breach of contract damages, the range is typically 3 to 5 months' rent (higher in winter than in summer).

Once a lease is signed, whether a tenant has moved in or not does not have a significant impact on terminating the lease. Though the harm to the landlord may be less, a tenant still needs proper grounds and procedure to break a lease to reduce the chances of adverse action from a landlord.

Yes, depending on the severity, leases can be terminated early due to flooding or water damage. Leases can be terminated with very little notice for severe flooding and, for less severe situations, a notice period is likely required.