Breaking a Lease in Georgia: Landlord/Tenant Guide 2024

Breaking a lease in Georgia is complicated for tenants and landlords alike. The good news is that a solid understanding of Georgia Landlord-Tenant laws can help you understand how to break a lease without penalty.

Tenants have several legal ways of breaking a lease, though some may require going to court. Landlords are generally required to show a violation of the lease agreement if they wish to break a lease. Below, we’ll discuss the different legal pathways both parties can take to break a lease and ways to limit penalties and additional fees.

Key Takeaways

• Tenants seeking to break their lease can legally do so if they’re active military members or individuals who have received a protective order due to stalking or violence.
• Other reasons may include disability accommodations, unsafe living conditions, or landlord harassment, though, in Georgia, the courts must rule on the validity of these claims.
• Landlords need a valid reason to break a lease, which can include tenants not paying rent, engaging in illegal activities, or violating their lease agreements.
• Landlords can charge early termination fees and rent through the duration of the lease agreement if tenants break their lease for non-valid reasons.
• Early termination clauses in the lease agreement can help protect both landlords and tenants against unexpected circumstances and additional fees and penalties.

Legal Reasons for Breaking a Lease in Georgia

In Georgia, legally breaking a lease is permissible if the tenant or landlord meets one of several qualifying conditions. For tenants, there are two legally enshrined protections in the Georgia Code:

Active Military Duty: Military service members can legally break their lease for several reasons:

• The service member is permanently reassigned to a location over 35 miles from the rental property.
• The service member is temporarily reassigned for a minimum of 60 days to a location over 35 miles from the rental property.
• The service member completes their active duty, and their registered home residence is over 35 miles from the rental property.
• The service member becomes eligible for military housing.

Civil/Criminal Violence or Stalking Order: Tenants facing physical violence or stalking can legally break their lease if they’ve received a protective order for either themselves, a child minor, or a joint tenant living with them. These four protective orders apply in these instances:

• Civil Family Violence Order
• Civil Stalking Order
• Criminal Family Violence Order
• Criminal Stalking Order

Additional Reasons

There are other reasons a tenant may be able to break a lease in Georgia. However, these reasons don’t have automatic protections in the Georgia code, and tenants may be forced to reach an agreement with their landlord or take them to court.

• Physical or mental disability: Under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and FHA (Fair Housing Act), a tenant may be able to break their lease early due to a denied reasonable accommodation.

• Unsafe living conditions: Landlords are required to keep their properties in repair and maintain access to utilities. Failure to do so and creating an uninhabitable unit may allow a tenant to claim a constructive eviction (property uninhabitable due to the landlord’s actions) in defense of rent owed.

• Landlord retaliation or harassment: Landlords cannot harass their tenants or retaliate against tenants who file formal complaints with the state. Doing so may allow the tenant to sue for damages and break the lease.

Landlords face different regulations for legally breaking a lease. In short, a tenant must have taken actions that allow the landlord to file an eviction notice and break the lease. Valid reasons include:

• Nonpayment of rent

• Illegal activity

• Lease agreement violations

If the contract includes an early termination clause, both landlords and tenants may be able to break the lease. In many cases, this clause is one of the best ways for both parties to protect themselves.

How to Break a Lease in Georgia Without Penalty

In Georgia, the answer to “How can I break my lease without penalty?” depends on which qualifying condition a tenant uses to break their lease. In general, tenants must follow the following steps to avoid penalties:

• Meet one of the two qualifying conditions above (active military or individual facing stalking or violence).
• Provide the standard 30-day notice to the landlord.
• Provide all necessary documentation. Military members must provide a copy of their military ID and reassignment or discharge orders. Individuals facing violence or stalking must provide a copy of the appropriate protective order that they have received from the court.

Both tenants and landlords can avoid penalties for breaking the lease if the circumstances are deemed valid in civil court. Proper documentation and a legitimate grievance are crucial to winning a civil suit.

Early termination clauses are an excellent addition to any lease, ensuring that both landlords and tenants have options for breaking a lease without incurring additional penalties.

How to Minimize Financial Responsibility When Breaking a Lease

Tenants and landlords should both know how to break a lease without penalty in Georgia. The best way to minimize financial responsibility is to use one of the protected avenues in the Georgia code when breaking a lease.

For tenants, this means either falling under the military or assault/stalking prequalified conditions or having a civil suit with solid evidence of landlord misconduct or neglect. For landlords, this means thorough documentation of lease violations to prevent counterclaims.

Otherwise, an early termination clause in the lease will usually limit additional financial responsibilities for everyone involved. Amicable separations are most likely if both parties maintain a legal way of ending their lease.

Consequences of Breaking a Lease in Georgia

Tenants must have a valid legal reason for breaking a lease. Moving, lacking the means to pay rent, getting a different job, or simply wanting a different house are all invalid reasons.

In Georgia, landlords aren’t required to fill a lease-break vacancy, so a tenant is likely responsible for rent through the duration of the lease unless the landlord fills the unit. In addition, a tenant may have to pay early termination fees if these three conditions are met (GA Landlord-Tenant Handbook, Page 13):

1. Damages are difficult to estimate accurately.
2. Fees are intended to cover damages, not penalize the tenant for leaving.
3. Fees represent a reasonable estimate of landlord damages incurred by the early termination.

For landlords who break a lease illegally, they may find themselves facing a civil suit.

Enforcing Penalties for Breaking a Lease

Though landlords can continue to charge rent to tenants who break a lease without a valid reason and charge them early termination fees, enforcing these penalties falls under the purview of civil courts.

Adding an early termination clause to a lease can help the landlord control the enforcement of penalties. Most tenants seeking to trigger the clause will likely pay the necessary contractual fees to break their lease legally.

Landlord Rights and Responsibilities

Landlords have the right to:

• Break the lease of a tenant who fails to pay rent, violates their lease agreement, or commits illegal activity on the landlord’s property.
• Collect rent for the full lease period if a tenant leaves early without a valid reason. In Georgia, landlords can keep the property empty and not find another tenant.
• Charge interest on unpaid rent, including if a tenant has broken their lease without legal cause.
• Charge early termination fees if meeting all necessary qualifications.

Landlords are required to:

• Give 60 days’ notice if ending a tenancy-at-will lease.
• Maintain the property’s habitability through repairs and access to utilities for the duration of the lease.
• Return a tenant’s security deposit, minus damages, within 30 days of the lease end.
• Continue to repair the property and provide utilities, even if the tenant fails to pay rent.

Tenant Rights and Responsibilities

Tenants have rights that protect them from illegal evictions and allow them to recoup certain costs. Examples include:

• Self-help evictions: It’s illegal for a landlord to break your lease and attempt to remove you themselves. The landlord must go through the proper judicial process.
• Constructive evictions: If a landlord fails to maintain and repair their property to the point that it becomes uninhabitable, tenants can sue the landlord for damages and use dilapidation as a defense against owed rent if the tenant broke their lease.
• Retaliatory Evictions: Landlords cannot file for eviction, increase rent, or break a tenant’s lease within three months of the tenant submitting a formal complaint about the property to a regulatory agency.
• Security Deposit Return: Tenants have the right to receive their security deposit, minus damages, within 30 days of breaking the lease.

In Georgia, tenants must:

• Continue paying rent, even if their landlord fails to make repairs.
• Pay rent for the duration of the original lease unless the landlord chooses to find a new tenant (if breaking the lease without valid cause).
• Meet all the contractual obligations of breaking the lease through an early termination clause.
• Provide all necessary documentation if breaking the lease due to the protections for active military members and individuals facing stalking or violence.
• Give 30 days’ notice if ending a tenancy-at-will lease.

Preventing Tenants From Breaking The Lease

When a tenant legally breaks their lease through the provisions granted in the Georgia code, there’s little a landlord can do. Otherwise, landlords can take several measures to protect themselves:

• Create strong Georgia leases with significant penalties for early termination.
• Maintain the property via repairs and consistent utility access so tenants can’t claim constructive evictions.
• Utilize early termination clauses to recoup your costs. Common stipulations include forfeiture of 1-2 months rent or security deposit.
• Allow tenants to sublet the property.

Legal Help for Landlords and Tenants

• State Bar of Georgia: Find a lawyer specializing in landlord-tenant regulations
• Georgia Legal Aid: Collection of sample forms and various media explaining common legal issues in the state.
• Atlanta Legal Aid: Legal help for low-income individuals in the Atlanta area.
• Georgia Legal Services Program: Legal help for low-income individuals in rural Georgia.

How TurboTenant Can Help

TurboTenant has multiple tools to help landlords avoid situations where they or their tenants must break a lease.

• Use our Georgia rental application to digitize the application process and widen the rental pool.
• Run credit checks for tenants to weed out renters who don’t fulfill financial obligations.
• Create early termination clauses within the leasing functionality of TurboTenant’s rental management software.
• Read our guides on Georgia Landlord-Tenant Laws and the Georgia Eviction Process.