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How the program works

1. At the bottom of this page link to and complete the Break Lease application.
2. Become a member of the union.
3. Once you become a member of the ATA Union  (membership is included with the Break Lease program), begin the work for ending your your lease.  

Usually casework involves landlord violations, which could be of a legal, technical nature. Some cases involve sending an inspector to the rental dwelling to determine physical noncompliances in and around the premises, combined with an attorney review of rental agreement flaws. Other cases may be circumstantially based. For all of this, appropriate notices to the landlord are available, laser printed, and a means of delivery arranged.

The objective of the Break Lease program is to avoid liability for the landlord's termination fees, repayment of concessions (also called "incentives" or "discounts"), and ongoing rent. Our experience helps to prevent legitimate claims for damages against you, including letter writing under attorney review responding to any and all allegations that the landlord - or landlord's agents - may make.

Depending on the procedure utilized, tenants may be able to move out immediately, but in any case usually no longer than 20 or 30 days later. This means that, in the worst case scenario, a prospective Break Lease Contract member who signs up after the middle of a given month would have to pay the full rent for the next month. Often, however, a late-arriving case can be concluded with minimal rent liability for the succeeding month: pro-rata rent and late fees.

The contract runs for one year, and over the duration - for no extra charge - under attorney review TAP will assist you in responding to any and all letters or notices from your landlord, the landlord's agents or management, the landlord's attorney, or even collection agencies. The object of the Break Lease Contract is to protect tenants from legal judgments by landlords, and to prevent landlords from despoiling tenants' credit records. TAP is very successful in these regards. Based on the casework established, this means:

• Only about 1% of the Break Lease cases end up in court litigation filed by landlords against their tenants, and when that happens we refer to a private attorney whom the tenants can retain for defending the cases and recovering attorney's fees. The attorney to whom we refer tenants has a highly successful track record.
• In fact, historically far more of the cases are referred to a private attorney for the tenants to themselves initiate legal action against their landlords, with the objectives of (1) actually recovering deposits wrongfully withheld as well as monetary damages; or (2) seeking a court ruling (called a declaratory judgment) that the tenants were entitled to terminate. Understand that these are extra options available to tenants at their own discretion, and such litigation is not a part of the Break Lease program.  The attorney to whom we refer tenants has a highly successful track record.
• Of course, the lawyer may suggest to first attempt settlement through negotiation. Once again, the attorney to whom we refer tenants is very successful at this, and often settlement includes return of deposits.
• In about 4% of the cases (it keeps decreasing) landlords tend to place negative records upon the tenants' credit report(s) without first obtaining a court judgment.  Invariably this would be done by a debt collector, otherwise known as a collections agency. In such circumstances we refer tenants to a national law firm that actually sues the offending party in federal court -- at no cost to the tenants. This particular law firm states that it can find grounds for such legal action about 80% of the time, which not only erases the negative credit bureau records, but also often results in damages being awarded to the tenants under fair credit laws, not to mention dinging the collections agency with an award of hefty attorneys' fees owed by the collections agency. We love it when this happens, because there is nothing better than making a debt collector pay through the nose, and that is why these negative credit records happen so rarely these days. For the remaining cases with negative credit records that the national law firm cannot help, they can almost always be eradicated through referral to a local attorney for settlement resolution. The local attorney to whom we refer tenants has a highly successful track record.

Break Lease services are risk free.  That is, we guarantee a full refund if the case cannot be concluded because the landlord corrects the problems.  Details will be explained to you at a complimentary Break Lease consultation.

Even if the landlord were to legally challenge the process (which, as stated above, happens rarely. . . generally about 1% of our caseload), so long as instructions are followed and you use a recommended attorney, TAP invariably succeeds in court.  The attorney to whom we refer our casework, when needed, has lost only four Break Lease Contract court cases in over 16 years of representation!  And even then, one of those losses was because that particular tenant sabotaged his own situation.

A case is built for return of your security deposit.  Should the landlord refuse, you will have a claim for triple the amount wrongfully withheld.  Often, TAP buttresses this with additional claims for statutory damages, such that the landlord's monetary claims are totally turned around in the tenant's favor and against the landlord.

It is important to realize that landlord-tenant relations are, by their nature, adversarial. Tenants who exercise their rights must anticipate a challenge.  Every case is approached with caution, and requires active participation and responsibility by the tenants. In a sense, each case is a partnership between the tenants and TAP. To this end, TAP supplies detailed Break Lease instructions that are the distillation of Ken Volk's 29 years of landlord-tenant experience. This knowledge base is your way to level the playing field and avoid entrapment by professional landlords.

Be wary.  Speak to TAP before your landlord. It is best to catch him or her by surprise. For many reasons, the last thing you should do is tip off your landlord that you are thinking about this.

Contact TAP for a free consultation without obligation. Call to set up an appointment and find out what documentation to bring. When you arrive you will be presented with all the options for your plan of attack, and you will be quoted a price. Even the scales: You get 29 years of successful landlord/tenant advocacy experience into your hands and on your side. In less than an hour's appointment, your lease is set to become history before your landlord knows what has hit him.

TAP is associated with Arizona Tenants Advocates (ATA), an Arizona non-profit. All TAP members become ATA members at no extra charge, providing protection from landlord retaliation.  All legal documents we prepare for tenants to submit to their landlords are reviewed and approved by a licensed Arizona attorney.