# Breaking a fixed term lease - help please



## Cooke13 (Mar 6, 2012)

Im staying in a flat which is a fixed rate flat for 3 months in QLD. I've been living here for 7 weeks now, and just today got a call today saying that a sick family member is after getting worse at home. Basically its an emergency and I need to fly back home to ireland this weekend. The landlord and secretaries here wont let me leave without paying for the whole 3 months and don't seem to care that I have an emergency, the even took the piss and started laughing about it, saying the don't believe it and all this. Can they force me to stay and pay rent? Also they were threatening me about court, but surely if I have left the country, then there is nothing they can do.

If I pay upfront for the remaining 5 weeks, then I wont be able to afford to fly back, so what can I do here? Am I stuck now? They are threatening me with court and all this and being very forceful trying to intimidate me. I really need and want to get back home now, as this could turn very serious very quickly, and really didn't want this hassle. Do I have any legal way of getting out of this and back to Ireland? Can they stop me flying home? They have my passport also which was scanned before I was given the keys.

A mate of mine text me today saying to do a runner overnight if all things fail, while I consider this a bit extreme, if I'm not able to get out of this, it will resort to something like that. Booking a flight, leaving the flat overnight, leaving the key under the secretaries door or something and taking the flight. But if I do that, can there be any repercussions? Can they notify the police about it, and if so, what can happen? Surely the police wont force you to come back to the apartment just to pay a few weeks rent? Im guessing my details would be put on a sort of register and it would affect my ability to rent here if I come back, but since im on a WHV, I don't know if I will ever come back, apart from perhaps holidays maybe many a year in the future.

So basically what can I do here? 

just looking for some info, as I need to get moving fast on this.


----------



## Dexter (May 5, 2010)

Start from calling Department of Fair Trading and ask them for advice.

Fair Trading : Department of Justice and Attorney-General


----------



## Boboa (Mar 24, 2009)

If you look at the website above you still can break the lease. You might have to pay for advertisement costs for property listing (~$100) and rent till they find a new renter. If you find a renter they will have to accept that. They are being annoyingly difficult so make sure you have everything in writing.


----------

