Ending a Lease Early
Tenants on a month-to-month lease (or who have not signed a lease) can give 30 days’ notice to leave from the day that rent is due. They do not need to give a reason. You would do this through a Form C, read more here.
For tenants on a year-to-year or fixed term lease, you cannot just serve a Form C and give 30 days’ notice to leave. Fixed term leases only end on the date stated in your lease, and year-to-year leases have different notice requirements.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, a tenant wants to end their tenancy early. There are six basic ways to do this, each with their own process and consequences:
1) Failure of Landlord to Serve a Copy of the Lease or Residential Tenancies Act
Section 7(1) of the RTA says that a landlord must give you a copy of the Act within 10 days of:
The start of the tenancy
The day you sign the lease
The day you get the keys to the unit
The day you take possession of the rental unit
whichever is earliest.
Section 7(2) says a landlord must also give you a copy of your lease (in the Standard Form of Lease) signed by all parties within 10 days of you signing the lease. If you don’t receive a copy of the RTA and/or your lease within this time frame, a tenant can give notice to the landlord that they are vacating the premises on a specific day, just as long as it’s within the next 90 days. For example, if a tenant never got a copy of their signed lease, they can serve their landlord notice on January 1st that they’ll be vacating the unit on February 28th.
2) Unilateral Termination
A tenant can choose to not provide notice that they are moving out and just leave the unit and stop paying rent. This is called “unilateral termination”.
If a tenant decides to just move out, they are still liable for the rent and all the conditions of the lease as if they were still an occupant of the unit. Your landlord can go after you for the unpaid rent after you have moved out of a unit. However, if your landlord is aware that you are no longer living in the unit, they have a responsibility to find another tenant to rent it (Residential Tenancies calls this the landlord’s responsibility to mitigate damages). If they don’t look for another tenant, you can’t be forced to pay the rent indefinitely.
See Resources for a template letter to send to your landlord informing them you will be unilaterally terminating the lease.
3) Mutual Termination
This is where a tenant and a landlord come into an agreement to end the lease early. This can happen even if the terms of your lease wouldn’t let you serve notice (e.g. in the middle of a fixed term lease).
To mutually terminate a lease, just ask the landlord if you can move out. However, they have the right to say no. If they do agree, make sure to get their agreement and the move-out date in writing.
4) Apply to Terminate your Lease
At any point a tenant can apply for a Residential Tenancies Hearing to request the lease be ended. You would do this through a Form J.
Reasons to do this include if the landlord has violated the Statutory Conditions (e.g. the unit is in very poor condition) or if the unit has become inaccessible to you because of a fire, flood, or natural disaster, but the landlord won’t end the lease.
Sometimes, tenants choose to unilaterally terminate the lease (just move out) while they wait for a Residential Tenancies Hearing. In this case, the Residential Tenancies Officer can terminate the lease retroactively. However, if the Officer does not determine there were sufficient grounds to terminate the lease, you could be held responsible for paying rent until the landlord finds a new tenant.
5) Lease Reassignment
See here for more information about reassigning your lease.
6) Health & Safety Issues
If you want to leave your unit because you are experiencing health or accessibility issues as a result of the condition of the unit or other personal circumstances, you can use a Form G and H to end your lease with 30 days’ notice. This is also applicable if you have recently been accepted into long-term care.
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Because most landlords are signing one-year fixed term leases instead of month-to-month leases, more tenants are having to resort to tactics to move out early.
As the housing crisis gets worse, it’s less and less likely that a landlord would have difficulty finding a new tenant to move into the unit. Generally, Residential Tenancies will award a landlord between 1-3 months’ rent for unilateral termination. However, you still don’t want to be on the hook for the missed rent.
Your landlord can’t just keep the security deposit for “breaking the lease”, but they can keep it if they lose out on rent because you moved out.
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Only move without providing notice if there are serious reasons you cannot live in the unit anymore.
Be prepared to have to keep paying rent.
If you are going to move out without proper legal notice, always make sure you make the landlord aware that you are leaving the unit and don’t intend to live there so they can find another tenant. The longer you wait to tell them, the more rent you could be on the hook for.
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If a tenant moves out without notice and the landlord lists the apartment at a much higher rent, it can indicate that they’re not reasonably trying to find another tenant to move in. (Witherell v Godin, 2006 NSSM 17)
If a tenant moves out without notice and the landlord finds a new tenant, they can’t hold the old tenant liable for the rest of their lease. Even if the new tenant doesn’t pay rent. (Fisher v MacKenzie, 1996 NSCA 36)
Landlords have the right to secure an abandoned apartment. If the landlord reasonably believes that the tenants have abandoned the lease and are no longer occupying the unit, they can change the locks. (Shortt v Jennings, 2010 NSSM 61)
