Break Your Lease
Landlord being unreasonable? Get professional help breaking your lease.
Full Risk Analysis
Unique Strategies
Peace of Mind
your apartment just isn't working out anymore:
Something has changed. New job forcing a move, roommate from hell, ceiling collapse, bedbugs, boyfriend threatening you, change of station orders, unresponsive landlord or just not getting what you paid for. There are so many reasons an apartment that made sense months ago doesn't fit your current situation.
Perhaps you tried to work it out with your landlord. Maybe you even tried to negotiate a buy-out or sublease. Instead of working with you, your landlord made threats and proposed "solutions" that would cost you tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, it seems like he wants turn your difficult situation into a bonus for him by charging both you and a replacement tenant rent.
We help tenants deal with difficult situations.
professional lease termination:
Let's face it, some landlords just don't respect tenants - they think that we still live in the age of lords and serfs. They make the rules and you will follow them. If your landlord is acting unreasonably, it's time to hire a lawyer to terminate your lease and get you into a housing situation that fits your current needs. Many leases can be broken for a month of rent, and even the most tricky cases aren't hopeless. Rules that protect tenants are convoluted and technical - fortunately, we have the experience to help you stand up to your landlord.
how it works
Contact us
Fill out the form located at the top of this page. Once we receive the form, our intake specialist will call you within one business day. She will ask you questions to determine whether your matter is a good fit for our firm. The intake specialist will also discuss the cost of services based on the facts of your matter.
complete your strategy session
If intake believes we can help and you wish to hire us, a strategy session is scheduled. The strategy session consists of a review of your important documents (lease, evidence of bad conditions, communications from your landlord, ect.), a discussion of your goals and concerns, an evaluation of your legal options and the risks associated with those options, and a question and answer session. At the end of the call, we will discuss whether it makes sense to move on to a full termination. If not, you leave with the peace of mind of knowing where you stand.
Lease termination
Once the Strategy Session is complete, you will understand your risk profile and the cost of termination. With that in mind, if you determine that termination makes sense, we will put the termination plan into action, terminate your lease, and instruct you on proper move-out procedures. Your landlord will be instructed to deal with us and, in all likelihood, you will have heard the last of him.
enjoy your new home
We take pride in our ability to improve the lives of so many tenants in a world where most attorneys are only interested in working with landlords. Whether you were leaving your old apartment due to awful conditions, an abusive spouse, or just to take your dream job in a new and exciting city, our termination process helps tenants make the move that is right for them.
who we serve
Though every tenant can benefit from a Strategy Session, our services make more sense for some than others
More likely to benefit
Less likely to benefit
What makes a strong case for termination?
In over a decade of representing tenants, we have seen just about every situation imaginable. Though any lease can be terminated, the risk of repercussions varies based on the specific facts of an individual's case.
Tenants that must move
The most obvious case for termination is a situation where staying in the unit is not an option. This commonly occurs where there is a mandatory job transfer, where the tenant bought a new house, or where the tenant already signed a lease on a new apartment. In these situations, it always makes sense to terminate, regardless of risk.
Tenants living with bad conditions
Within Cook County, almost all tenants can terminate a lease if there is a significant conditions problem with the unit and the landlord does not fix it after a technically correct notice. If the conditions problem is very bad (think flooding, lack of essential services ect.) the tenant can often terminate with little or no notice.
Outside of Cook County, the conditions problem has to be really significant since other counties are not as protective of tenants.
Tenants living with abusive people
Living with an abuser is a horrible situation and Illinois recognizes this. If a tenant is in an active abuse situation, a termination is possible so long as the many technicalities of Illinois law are satisfied.
Tenants with horrible landlords
I could write a book on the many ways a landlord can be horrible and there are few things worse than having one of your basic needs controlled by a psychopath. If your landlord is walking into your unit whenever they like, retaliating when you upset them, conducting unauthorized renovations, propositioning you for sex (yep, it happens) or otherwise making your life hell, it may be time to move.
Faq
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 terminates their lease without legal justification and without jumping through all the necessary legal hoops (proper notices ect.), the tenant will owe the landlord all the rent for the remainder of the lease, plus reasonable marketing expenses, plus legal costs (usually), minus rent received from a new tenant.
Improper lease termination can be pretty risky, we have had tenants walk away from their lease before, get sued for five figures, and then come to us for help. Though we do our best in those situations, it is much lower risk to involve an attorney at the outset.
No, nothing in the legal world is certain or risk free. Even if you have very strong grounds for termination, the landlord might still sue you and you would have to settle or defend the case. Historically, we have had a great deal of success terminating leases without litigation.
Leases can be terminated very rapidly if necessary. Though not ideal, we have had some same-day turnaround lease breaks when the circumstances warranted it. Ideally, it is nice to have 2+ weeks to work with, since it can strengthen the termination.
who we are
The team at Brabender Law + CTM Legal Group has served thousands of tenants.
Brabender law llc
J. Andrew Brabender
ctm legal group
William Tasch
ctm legal group