I broke a lease early due to a new job. I had 3 months left on it. Paid the lease break fees, all that. Everything was all good.
This was about a year ago, May 2025.
Today I applied for an apartment guarantor and was denied due to an eviction. I was shocked. They sent me their screening report and that landlord from the apartment in May evicted me. Went to the court record and apparently I didn’t pay the full fee amount (I was $100 short??), they never told me, took me to court over it, and I had a judgement entered against me, and now an eviction on my record. I also automatically lost because I didn’t show up in court.
This was entered in August 2025. I was living and working in a different state and in a new apartment at this point. My original lease also would have also been over this month.
I have NO idea what to do. I didn’t get any of the notices of the court dates or anything.
And also obviously this looks terrible to landlords because it looks like I just didn’t pay rent and refused to leave an apartment, despite having near perfect on time rent payments and rental history aside from this early break.
I’m freaking out. What the HELL do I do??
Eviction I didn’t know I had. What to do?
byu/anchordwn inpersonalfinance
Posted by anchordwn
2 Comments
Better to approach a lawyer for a consultation. But most likely, you’d have to check full case file to see exactly what the landlord claimed, what address they sent notices to, and what evidence they presented. If they sent notices to your old address knowing you had vacated, that is a service issue. Hopefully you still have a record of all your payments until you vacated and all your communications with your previous landlord about you ending your lease early.
Get your court records immediately like the petition, case disposition etc. Were you properly served? Because if you had already moved and living in another state and never actually received the notice you may be able to file a motion to set aside default judgement.
Then try and figure out whether it was an actual eviction for possession case or just a money judgement attached to landlord-tenant court