Topic: Can a military resident break their lease due to a divorce?

Question: can a military resident break their lease due to a divorce? This is what he said:

“the military-civilian act: it allows and service member to break a legal agreement upon approval of the command”

Can this hold water?

Google Soldiers and Sailors Civil Reief Act. It allows lease breakage WITH ORDERS.

No sir it cannot, nowhere in the Service Members Civil Relief Act does it allow divorce as a reason for breakage! He is making it up sounds like

State and local laws do not apply in this case period and do not supersede the SCRA...which again, DOES NOT ALLOW DIVORCE as an option...period

Nope, not valid.

No not a valid reason.

Permanent change of station only in Texas

In my years of experience it had only been like this: they are able to break a lease with no penalty if they have orders that state they are being moved. They still had to give a 30 day notice starting at the beginning of the next month and we had to have a copy of the orders. I always would recommend checking your lease to see if something else is stated, but in Washington, Texas and Nevada these have been the commonly followed guidelines.

Same in California with Libby's explanation above!

Call your attorney!

No. 30 days out with copy of orders

Nope...... not a real argument. He's reaching

The Civil Service Relief Act is very specific.. and no, divorce isn't covered...www.military.com/benefits/military-legal...ef-act-overview.html I guess you can't blame a guy for trying, though, lol

30 days? In Florida I experoenced someone bringing their orders on a Friday, which stated their new duty station was in a neighboring state, and they were to report the following Monday.

It really shouldn’t matter when the orders are for, because you are granting them out of their lease but they have to follow the rules in order to be granted out of their lease which is a 30 day notice which begins at the next first of the month so if they were to give their notice or bring you their orders today their notice would be effective May 1 through May 30 that’s the way that it’s always been in all the different companies that I’ve worked for. There should be a paragraph that lays it out in the lease though.

There is no "minimum" time, and the lease requirement of a specific notice period is null in the event of PCS orders.

No worries! "Thank you for your service, good luck and godspeed!"

No it is deployment clause in the lease.

They can but the fees are not subject to being waived. Only active military orders for deployment.

So I'm going to pull both my veteran card and property management card at the same time for just a moment. You cannot charge lease termination fees, accelerated rent or any other penalty. It's not just for deployment, either... state-side PCS and extended TDY orders can also qualify. I would highly recommend you contact your attorney if you are not sure, because your military-member resident has FREE access to some of the best lawyers in country via their base JAG office.

The act covers PCS orders (permanent change of station), TDY for more than 90 days such as a deployment or temporary duty somewhere else and of course EAS, which is end of service. Each of these options comes with orders which you should be able to verify with the service members command. The SCRA does not allow to break your lease for divorce or any other reason then the above three options. I would recommend calling an attorney but Military One Source is a great resource as well. I am a property manager as well as Marine wife and have used this clause in 3 different states, California being one of them, both as a wife and property manager.

Thank you all for your wonderful insight!

Not in California only orders of deployment or basic training with proof of document order. So a divorce doesn't waive an early termination fee.

You can also call his Company commander and tell him his guy is failing to meet his financial responsibility. The military frowns on this and will tell him he needs to take care of his financial responsibilities. just tell him you are contacting his CO and I bet he sings another tune.

Not in Texas.
Call attorney.
Then call his commander.
He'll stop the nonsense.

No no no. There is no military-civilian act. I'm in the business and my husband is a JAG in the Army. The only reason a military member has the "right" to break a lease without penalty is due to a deployment or transfer orders....and that's just the right thing to do anyway. You may still require 30days notice.

It must be a 30-day notice by the 1st of the month.

Lauretta Gerler Ludwig, your lease may require the 30 day notice by the 1st, but I'm not sure the law protects the landlord to get the 1st through the 30th plus prorated days vs. any 30 days in a row. Most often the soldier only gets 30 days notice to change duty station or deploy. To tack on extra days of rent, plus the 30 days because the notice didn't land on the 1st of the month doesn't seem the right thing to do by the soldier.

Review the statute. I'm sure it is a 30-day notice by the 1st of the month.

The statue entitles the landlord to 30 days from the "next rent due date".....so if someone gets orders on April 20th.....the next rent due date is May 1 so they can be released May 30. Spouses are also released, but not roommates.

I think they write this stuff confusing on purpose

Ok... the landlord is entitled to the full month plus prorated according to the statute. I understand the properties are a "business." I'm, of course, biased due to being the spouse of a service member and having experienced 3 years of deployments. I'm blessed to have a group of outstanding managers who can get that unit turned and new resident moved in within a few days of a move out. This benefits the soldier if they really do need to move in 30 days and those extra days don't come ot of their security deposit. No argument on the statute, just trying to create win/win solutions to do what we believe to be the right thing to do.

Every landlord must figure out what is right for them.

Janie Nash Burnett, agreed! A difference of opinions doesn't make anyone wrong. It just makes us different. Too bad society in general is not okay with that.

Sherri Cokain Weise when I do training, I always tell people they have to figure out what works for them. And that is long as they are in compliance with the law they will be fine.