Lease Acceleration Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what Arizona law says, what's specific to Phoenix - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- A.R.S. § 33-1370 requires your landlord to make reasonable efforts to re-rent at a fair rental once abandonment occurs.
- Abandonment means seven days gone with rent unpaid ten days and no reasonable evidence you still live there.
- The shorter path is five days gone with rent unpaid five days and your personal property removed.
- A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits recovery to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees - not every unexpired month.
- Phoenix adds nothing, while a Florida landlord may legally sit still and bill you as rent comes due.
Understanding the Lease Acceleration Clause
A lease acceleration clause says that the day you break your lease, every remaining month of rent comes due at once. On a Phoenix two-bedroom with seven months left, that's a demand letter carrying a number most renters can't pay.
Arizona doesn't let that paragraph run unchecked. A.R.S. § 33-1370 makes your landlord try to re-rent once you've legally abandoned, and A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits what they can actually collect to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees.
What renters assume
Most renters read "all remaining rent shall immediately become due" and treat it as a settled legal bill. Plenty pay it, or let it slide into collections without asking a single question.
What is actually true
Arizona measures the bill by reasonable damages under A.R.S. § 33-1368(C), and § 33-1370 puts a re-rental duty on your landlord. A clause can't collect what the statute never authorized.
Arizona sits on the protective side of this chart. A Florida landlord may legally do nothing and bill you month by month, and Georgia has no mitigation statute at all - while Arizona's duty attaches the moment abandonment is established.
Plain English Version
Your lease makes it sound like the whole tab is due the day you hand back the keys. Arizona treats your unit more like a cancelled airline seat - the landlord has to try to sell it again, and you cover only the gap they can actually prove.
Rent Acceleration Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Phoenix, AZ
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.
As the court reproduced it. The passage below is not the whole paragraph - a sentence about late fees and interest on accelerated amounts comes after it and has been left out:
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.
“If any monthly installment”
The lease triggers on a missed payment. The Arizona statute triggers on something else entirely, and it counts days to get there. A.R.S. § 33-1370 treats a unit as abandoned after seven days' absence with rent unpaid ten days and no reasonable evidence of occupancy, or after five days' absence with rent unpaid five days and the tenant's personal property removed. A missed installment on its own satisfies neither test, so the landlord's statutory re-rental duty has not started even though this paragraph has.
“shall at once become due and payable”
Here is the Arizona sentence to hold next to this one. A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits what a landlord may recover to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees, and our Arizona record is explicit that the subsection does not authorise accelerated future rent. That is not the same as the lease being blank paper. It is that the statutory list of recoverable items does not include the thing this sentence converts into a debt on the day of default.
“at the option of the Landlord”
Arizona attaches a consequence to what the landlord does about the empty unit, and it runs back into the lease itself. If the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts to rent the unit at a fair rental, or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the rental agreement terminates - and a terminated agreement is a poor foundation for a demand built on that agreement's own acceleration paragraph. The option this sentence hands the landlord is therefore not free-standing: what the landlord does about the empty unit feeds back into whether the lease is still there to be enforced.
“is re-rented to another”
Re-renting is the statutory duty in Arizona, and the standard is a fair rental rather than whatever the old lease said. Compare Florida, where Fla. Stat. § 83.595 expressly permits a landlord to stand by and do nothing, holding the tenant liable for rent as it becomes due. Phoenix and Miami read this same sentence in opposite directions: in one, the landlord's inaction can end the agreement; in the other, inaction is one of the remedies on the list.
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.
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.
Arizona Law on Lease Acceleration Clause
- A.R.S. § 33-1370 requires the landlord to make reasonable efforts to rent the dwelling unit at a fair rental after abandonment.
- Abandonment means seven days' absence with rent unpaid ten days and no reasonable evidence of occupancy, or five days' absence with rent unpaid five days and personal property removed.
- If the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts, or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the rental agreement terminates.
- A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits landlord recovery to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees, and does not authorize accelerated future rent.
Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 33-1370 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
The duty doesn't start with your goodbye email - it starts at abandonment. Arizona defines that two ways: seven days gone with rent unpaid ten days and no reasonable evidence of occupancy, or five days gone with rent unpaid five days and your personal property removed.
From there, A.R.S. § 33-1370 requires reasonable efforts to re-rent at a fair rental, and if your landlord doesn't try - or accepts the abandonment as a surrender - the rental agreement terminates. Texas goes further under Tex. Prop. Code § 91.006, where any lease term waiving mitigation is flatly void; Arizona hangs the duty on its abandonment definition instead.
Arizona Tenant Protections
A.R.S. § 33-1370 requires your landlord to make reasonable efforts to re-rent the dwelling at a fair rental once abandonment is established. If your landlord skips that effort or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the rental agreement terminates and future rent stops running with it. A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits what a landlord can recover to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees, which does not include every unexpired month of rent.
What's Specific to Phoenix
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.
Phoenix adds nothing on rent acceleration. The Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act governs statewide, so a lease in Ahwatukee reads the same way as one in Maryvale or a downtown high-rise - there's no city layer to look up.
Market timing does the work an ordinance would. Metro Phoenix absorbed a heavy wave of new apartment construction and move-in concessions are common, so units generally re-rent - but a property manager may still point to a slow summer to justify a long vacancy. Screenshot the relisting, the asking rent, and any free-month offer the day it appears.
It should. A.R.S. § 33-1370 requires reasonable efforts to re-rent at a fair rental, and a lease that stays silent doesn't erase that duty.
Fair leases track the statute: seven days gone with rent ten days unpaid, or five days gone with your property removed.
Red flag. A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits recovery to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees - accelerated future rent isn't on that list.
Push back before signing. A clause saying the landlord has no obligation to re-rent runs straight into A.R.S. § 33-1370.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 33-1370 on azleg.gov, Arizona's own publication of its statutes.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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All remaining rent due immediately
The clause bills every unexpired month the day you leave. A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits recovery to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees.
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No obligation to re-rent
Language freeing your landlord from looking for a new tenant. A.R.S. § 33-1370 requires reasonable efforts to re-rent at a fair rental after abandonment.
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Acceleration stacked on re-letting fees
The lease takes the full balance and a separate re-letting charge. Ask which amounts are real damages and which are the same loss billed twice.
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Abandonment redefined shorter than statute
A clause treating a two-day absence as abandonment. Arizona's thresholds are seven days with rent ten days unpaid, or five days with property removed.
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Deposit kept plus accelerated balance
Your entire deposit is forfeited and the accelerated bill still arrives. Ask in writing for an itemization showing what the deposit was credited against.
Your Rights as a Phoenix Tenant
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A landlord who must try
A.R.S. § 33-1370 obligates reasonable efforts to re-rent at a fair rental once abandonment is established. Sitting still isn't a lawful strategy in Arizona.
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The agreement can terminate
If your landlord skips those efforts or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the rental agreement terminates - and future rent stops running with it.
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Damages have to be reasonable
A.R.S. § 33-1368(C) limits recovery to reasonable damages, court costs and attorney fees. Accelerated future rent isn't in that list.
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Proof, not round numbers
Ask for the relisting date, the new rent, and receipts. A claim of long vacancy in a fast-moving Phoenix submarket needs evidence, not an estimate.
What To Do - Step by Step
Find the acceleration paragraph
Search your lease for "accelerate", "all remaining rent", or "balance of the term". That exact wording is the number your property manager will start from.
Give dated written notice
Email it and mail it. Arizona's abandonment test turns on days absent and unpaid rent, so a dated paper trail keeps the timeline out of dispute.
Return keys and document the unit
Photograph every room and hand back keys on a date you can prove. Rent disputes and deposit disputes get settled from the same file.
Watch for the relisting
Check Zillow, Apartments.com, and the property's own site weekly. A unit back on the market within days undercuts any claim of a long vacancy.
Demand an itemized statement
Ask in writing for the re-rental date, the new rent, and receipts for actual costs. You owe reasonable damages, not the figure on a demand letter.
Get free Arizona tenant help
Community Legal Services takes Maricopa County landlord-tenant cases for qualifying renters, and the Arizona Department of Housing publishes the full Landlord and Tenant Act free.