Lease Acceleration Clause
in Your Lease
How this page is sourced
Statutes verified against primary state sources
Every statute cited here was read in its published text before this page went live: on the state's own site where that site can be reached, otherwise on a republished copy of the code. Court decisions are quoted from the published opinion and linked to it, so you can read the original yourself.
Primary sourcesNot legal advice
Content verified against primary state statutes before publicationLast updated: October 2026
What it actually means, what Florida law says, what's specific to Miami - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- Florida Statute 83.595 gives your landlord a menu of remedies once you breach, surrender or abandon the lease.
- There is no forced duty to re-rent. Your landlord may do nothing and bill rent as it becomes due.
- If your landlord relets, they owe good faith efforts and you owe only the shortfall.
- A separately signed addendum can cap an exit at two months' rent, with at most 60 days' notice.
- Our record of Miami law has no city or county rule on rent acceleration.
Step by step
How it plays out
- You leave earlyLandlord picks a remedySection 83.595 gives your landlord a menu of remedies once you breach, surrender or abandon the lease.
- Unit sits emptyRent runs as dueYour landlord may stand by, do nothing, and hold you liable for rent as it becomes due. Florida has no forced mitigation duty.
- Unit is reletYou owe the shortfallIf your landlord retakes and relets with good faith efforts, you owe the gap between your rent and the new tenant's.
Try your numbers
Is your early termination fee over the limit?
Applies to only liquidated damages or an early termination fee set in a separately signed addendum, entered on its own; it does not cap rent your landlord bills as it becomes due or the shortfall after reletting, and that addendum can require no more than 60 days' notice from you (Fla. Stat. § 83.595). Arithmetic only, not legal advice.
Copy and send: When your landlord bills you after re-renting the unit you left
Ask for the re-lease date and new rent
Fill in the brackets and keep a copy of what you send.
How Florida compares
Landlord duty to mitigate after an early lease break, state by state
No figureGuide coming soonYou are here
See all 25 cities as a chart
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
Understanding the Lease Acceleration Clause
This page is for Miami renters whose lease has an acceleration clause: the paragraph that makes every remaining month of rent due at once if you leave early. Leave a twelve-month lease in month five and the demand covers all seven months you won't be living there.
Florida law does not make your landlord try to re-rent first. What you owe turns on which remedy your landlord picks, and on whether you signed a separate buyout addendum.
What renters assume
My landlord has to at least try to re-rent the place before charging me for the months I'm gone.
What is actually true
Not in Florida. Section 83.595 lets your landlord do nothing and hold you liable for rent as it becomes due. Good faith efforts are required only if they choose to relet.
Same paragraph in the lease, wildly different outcomes by state. Texas and New York make any waiver of the landlord's duty to re-rent void, and Washington puts a statutory cap on what a departing tenant can owe - Florida gives you neither.
Rent Acceleration Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Miami, FL
The sample clause below is real lease language - a court quoted it word for word, and then ruled on it. What the judge decided is at the bottom of this block.
Find the equivalent paragraph in your own lease and read the two side by side. The wording will differ; the moving parts rarely do.
Quoted as the opinion prints it. A fourth sentence, about when late fees and interest may be charged on accelerated amounts, comes after the passage below and is not included:
If any monthly installment under this agreement is not paid when due and remains unpaid after a date specified by a notice to Tenant, the entire principal rent amount owed for the full lease term shall at once become due and payable at the option of the Landlord and judgment may be had for all said amounts due. The foregoing provision shall not relieve the Landlord of its obligation to mitigate damages. In the event the rental premises is re-rented to another for full value prior to expiration of the lease term, Landlord shall file Notice of Partial Satisfaction of any judgment entered to the extent of the third party rental agreement.
[…]
Quoted from the published opinion in Summers v. Crestview Apartments, 2010 MT 164, 357 Mont. 123, 236 P.3d 586 (No. DA 09-0489). Judicial opinions are not subject to copyright; the lease language is reproduced in limited part for commentary under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
What the 4 highlighted phrases mean
“at the option of the Landlord”
Florida law echoes this back almost word for word. Fla. Stat. § 83.595 is written as a set of choices a landlord makes after a breach, surrender or abandonment, and one of the listed choices is to stand by and do nothing, holding the tenant liable for rent as it becomes due. That is the difference between Miami and most of the cities compared here: elsewhere the argument is whether the landlord tried hard enough to re-let, and in Florida the statute says the landlord may lawfully not try at all.
See the example
“and judgment may be had”
The lease's route to money is a judgment for the whole term. Florida offers a cheaper route, and that one is capped: a separately signed addendum may set liquidated damages or an early termination fee of no more than two months' rent, and it may require no more than 60 days' notice from the tenant. Two months is a very different number from the balance of a year, so the first thing to look for in a Florida lease packet is whether that addendum exists at all.
See the example
“In the event the rental premises”
This sentence describes the branch of the Florida menu a landlord may or may not take. If the landlord does retake possession and relet, the statute requires good faith efforts and you are liable for the shortfall - the gap between your rent and what the new tenant pays, not the whole of your rent. If the landlord takes the other branch, no reletting is required and no shortfall arises, because there is nothing to subtract.
See the example
“prior to expiration of the lease term”
Everything in this sentence happens inside the remaining term, and that window is where the states genuinely differ. Florida leaves a landlord free to let it run out. Illinois, by contrast, has required a landlord to take reasonable measures to mitigate the damages recoverable against a defaulting lessee since January 1, 1984, which cuts a whole-term demand down to what re-renting could have recovered. Same clause, same window, opposite defaults. Because § 83.595 permits the inaction, the part of the Florida record that puts a number on a lease break is the separately signed addendum and its two months' rent ceiling, not a mitigation argument.
The Montana Supreme Court struck this paragraph down, and its conclusion is one sentence: “Thus, we conclude that the accelerated rent provision is unconscionable and therefore unenforceable.” The tenants had moved out of their apartment on October 13, 2006, and Crestview answered with a Statement of Deductions from the Security Deposit charging rent through the end of the lease in June - $6,505.75 billed against a $2,170 deposit. Two reasons carried the court. Acceleration undermines the landlord's duty to mitigate and reduces the incentive to re-rent promptly, because a landlord already holding a judgment for the whole term has little reason to fill the unit. And Crestview drafted the lease while these tenants had no meaningful choice and no opportunity to negotiate any of it. The case was reversed and remanded, and two justices wrote separately - their objection being that the majority had gone as far as treating acceleration clauses as unenforceable in themselves. So read the holding narrowly, as the majority wrote it: this provision, in this residential lease, unconscionable and unenforceable. It is a Montana decision and it binds no other state's courts. What travels is the reasoning, and the reasoning is about mitigation - which is exactly the question the statute in your own city's decode answers.
How this state's law treats this clause
One court, one lease, one state. That answer is not automatically yours, and your lease may be worded to land differently. Use this to know what to look for and what to ask - your state's tenant hotline or a local tenant attorney can answer it for your document.
Florida Law on Lease Acceleration Clause
- Section 83.595 gives the landlord a menu of remedies after breach, surrender, or abandonment.
- The landlord may retake possession and relet, using good faith efforts, holding the tenant liable for the shortfall.
- Critically, the landlord may instead stand by and do nothing, holding the tenant liable for rent as it becomes due - there is no forced mitigation duty.
- A separately signed addendum may set liquidated damages or an early termination fee capped at two months' rent, requiring no more than 60 days' notice from the tenant.
Sources include Fla. Stat. § 83.595 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
In Florida, Fla. Stat. § 83.595 answers this question. Once you breach the lease, surrender the unit or abandon it, your landlord chooses from a menu of remedies.
- Relet the unit. Your landlord may retake possession and re-rent it, using good faith efforts. You owe the shortfall: the gap between your rent and what the new tenant pays.
- Stand by. Your landlord may do nothing and hold you liable for rent as it becomes due. Florida has no forced mitigation duty.
- A capped buyout. A separately signed addendum may set liquidated damages or an early termination fee capped at two months' rent. It can require no more than 60 days' notice from you.
A buyout paragraph tucked into the body of the lease is not the separately signed version. Check which one you have before you plan your move-out.
What's Specific to Miami
Our record of Miami law has no city or county rule on rent acceleration or reletting, and Section 83.595 reads the same in Brickell as it does in Kendall. That leaves your lease and any addendum you signed as the documents to read.
If your landlord sues you in Miami-Dade County court, a demand letter is not a judgment: your landlord still has to prove the damages.
Good. Florida won't force reletting, so a written credit clause does work the statute does not.
Good. That separately signed page is the capped exit. Without one, you face rent as it becomes due.
Push back. The statute's capped option tops out at two months' rent, so a larger fee is not the protected version.
Red flag. A capped termination fee can require no more than 60 days' notice from you.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- Fla. Stat. § 83.595 on flsenate.gov, Florida's own publication of its statutes.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
-
Total silence on re-renting
A lease that never mentions reletting leaves you on Florida's default: the landlord can leave the unit empty and bill you as rent becomes due.
-
Termination fee above two months
The statute's capped buyout tops out at two months' rent. A higher fee is not the protected version and deserves a written challenge.
-
Buyout buried in the lease
The capped fee needs a separately signed addendum. A paragraph in the lease body is not that, whatever its heading says.
-
Fee stacked on accelerated rent
A bill that charges a termination fee and every remaining month charges you twice for one empty unit. Dispute it before you pay.
-
No accounting after a re-lease
If they relet, you owe only the shortfall. Without the new rent and start date in writing, you can't check their math.
Your Rights as a Miami Tenant
-
You owe the shortfall, not everything
If your landlord retakes and relets the unit, you owe the gap between your rent and the new tenant's, not the full remaining term.
-
A capped buyout option
A separately signed addendum can cap your exit at two months' rent and can't require more than 60 days' notice.
-
Good faith once they relet
Choosing to relet comes with a good faith standard. A unit never listed or shown is a weak version of that effort.
-
The right to make them prove it
A demand letter is not a judgment. Your landlord still has to prove the damages, and you can negotiate or defend the amount.
What To Do - Step by Step
Find the acceleration paragraph
Search your lease for 'accelerate', 'entire balance' or 'liquidated damages'. That wording sets what they will demand.
Check for a signed addendum
Look for a separate early termination page you signed. That is the two months' rent exit.
Give written notice early
Send your move-out date by email and certified mail. If a capped addendum applies, plan around its notice period, which tops out at 60 days.
Offer a replacement tenant
Florida won't make your landlord look, so you can. Send names in writing and keep every reply.
Return keys and document everything
Photograph every room and hand keys over formally. A rent-ready unit removes the easiest excuse for leaving it empty.
Ask for the numbers in writing
If the unit was relet, ask for the re-lease date and new rent. Then negotiate, or make them prove the damages in court.
Why renters trust LeaseDecoded
Frequently Asked Questions
Lease Acceleration rules near Florida
The same clause in the nearest states we cover.
Was this guide helpful?Your answer is anonymous and helps us fix what is unclear.