Sometimes life hands you a lemon, and you want to make lemonade. However, in the process of making this delicious and refreshing drink, you might just squeeze a bit of lemon juice into your eye. In the home rental industry, the life’s lemon can be related to a job transfer, a new relationship, a pregnancy or even a child heading off to school for the first time. Lemonade refers to the opportunity to move to a new home, so you can make the best out of the life change. And the stinging lemon juice in the eye is you sacrificing your security deposit on your apartment so you can leave the lease agreement early.
Is it worth sacrificing your security deposit? It depends on your history. Specifically, your rental history report. If you were to look at your history report, does it show that you’ve paid your rent on time consistently? Does it show your credit history is strong? That you have a clean criminal background? If you’ve answered yes to all these questions, you might not be affected by a negative mark for breaking a lease early. However, if you were to apply for a rental unit in the future, the landlord reviewing applications might reject yours if he sees a report that you did break your lease early. Then you’d be out more than just a security deposit. You might be struggling to find a quality apartment to rent as well.
When planning on renting for many years to come, it’s in your best interest to keep your rental history report as clean of negative reports and errors as you can. Be sure to review your report on a regular basis, and if errors do show up, take action immediately to get those resolved.
