I’m leaving an apartment lease 10 months early and they’re demanding (April 21 is last day)
Penalty 218709 (almost 2 months rent)
Cleaning 38000 without tax
Air conditioner 12000 without tax
April 123000
May 123000
And money for any damage to the apartment
This seems outrageous, I’m just wondering if there’s a way around this or some type of legal thing to lessen this
11 comments
Are all these penalties written in the contract that you signed? If so, aside from trying to pull their heartstrings, not much I can think of.
You are fucked. They can set the penalty to be pretty damn high and it’s up to you to not sign it. The most relevant court precedent I found is this:
https://www.oumilaw.jp/kouza/65.html
Summary: guy signs a 4 year lease. Breaks lease after 10 months, so 3 years 2 months left on lease. Lease penalty is entire remainder of lease, meaning a penalty of 3 years 2 months rent. The court found this to be overly punitive, and reduced the penalty to 1 year worth of rent.
Your penalty is far, far under a full year worth of rent, and even proportionally to the remainder of the lease is similar to that court decision. Better pay up.
u/tannerleaf????? Any insights?
The cleaning charge and the air conditioning charge look standard. It’s also standard that they would charge for either all or part of April.
What’s the justification for the penalty plus charging for May? Is it because you didn’t inform them early enough?
I’m also curious about this lease. Did you have to pay a large initial fee? Because typically when you pay a large initial fee you don’t have to pay a departure penalty.
How much notice did you get them?
April Rent, cleaning, AC can be taken out of this as they are normal and you are also living there most of April.
sucks but that’s on you, maybe you could get on your knees and plead for a discount but for the love of god do pay up and don’t leave the country, that would only reinforce the prejudice foreigners go through when looking for places
Call NCAC.
https://www.kokusen.go.jp/map/
I had a similar situation (minus the penalty) and they offered to split the payments over three months so it was manageable. Maybe ask if they can do the same?
FWIW – If you are breaking the lease and they had the 2 month penalty in there, it is high but it was disclosed and it isn’t completely outrageous.
Cleaning – I’ve seen worse although it is high to me.
Aircon – I don’t understand this? Why would there be a charge?
Contracts with early check out penalties are usually contracts without key money, deposits and/or full real estate transaction fees.
Basically you are paying what everyone else has already paid at the beginning of their contracts. You were thinking that you could save money, but really you only succeeded in limiting your initial selection.
did you give notice today? that might explain why they are charging full amount of rent for April + May, if the contract says you have to give 1 month’s notice and pay 1 month’s rent of penalty (which is exactly what my lease says actually), that takes you to May 30.