Cancelling lease - what am I liable for?

Posted by a-mann (18 days ago)

I have about 8 months remaining on a standard 12 month residential lease, but for various reasons I want to move out although I'll still be staying in HK.

Looking at the contract, it seems as though I have an obligation to pay the rent for the full term, but with all the expats leaving HK when losing their jobs etc, what happens in reality?

Will I just lose the 2 moths security deposit and be done with it? Or can/will they come after me for the rest?

Thanks in advance!

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Posted by punter (18 days ago)

They'll definitely run after you and they've got legal basis. If you were the landlord, what would you do?

Posted by a-mann (18 days ago)

I assume that they would have the right to recover the full term of rent, circumscribed by the obligation to attempt to mitigate their loss by renting the apartment out. So my sense is that in a reasonable rental market they may be able to re-let it within a month or so, with the possibility of breaking even or making a slight profit on the security deposit. In that event there's not be any/much money to pursue. My question is thus whether this is what tends to happen in practice ...

Posted by PizzaAce (17 days ago)

a-mann, just disappear. If you told your landlord where you worked, then unfortunately your turkey is cooked. You made his job 100 times easier to track you down and to haul you down to Court for the remainder of the 8 months subject to mitigation by them.