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I’ve Been Evicted, I Had to Break a Lease! HELP!

Sometimes “Life Happens”.

Let’s say you have a roommate, you are sharing rent payments, utility bills, groceries, and everything is going just peachy.  One day, your trusty roommate decides to take a job out of state, decides to get married (uh oh!), loses a job, or you get into a fight and your roommate splits.

What do you do?  You’ve been relying on your roommate’s income to make the rental payment.  You signed your name to that rental agreement and there are still many months left on it before you can get out of it.  You simply don’t have the income to support the entire payment.

Well, if you have to break the lease before the term is up, you will be liable for the money that equals the number of months left on the lease when you broke it X the $$ amount of the monthly rental.  Most agreements also tack on attorney fees, late fees, and all other kind of junk fees associated with the collection of the amount you owe.   If you do not pay, the landlord can sue you, get a judgment against you, and potentially garnish your wages to collect on the judgment.  Not a pretty picture at all.

A debt owed for a broken lease, or an eviction is an unsecured debt that can be wiped out in bankruptcy.  That’s right, you will not owe the landlord, you cannot be sued, and your wages will not be garnished,  when you file for bankruptcy protection.  By the way, the same can be said for those pesky utility companies that come after you after your trusty and reliable roommate skips out of town.

So, don’t let your roommate’s decision wind up leaving you with less money in your paycheck each pay period, bad credit, and facing ugly bill collector calls.  Take action to eliminate your liability for the debt and protect yourself from other creditors by filing for protection under the bankruptcy code.