Violating your rental agreement could ruin your credit, if you decide to break your lease without paying for it.  That’s a given. Breaking your lease could certainly ruin your credit. [AdSense-C] If you have certain number of months still left to pay on your rental agreement and you decided that you want to break your lease, your landlord could assess some penalties.  If you decide not pay off the penalty assessed for breaking your lease, then it could result in your account being sold to collections.  If collections cannot get any of the balance for you to pay them back, then the agency will report your account to credit reporting companies.   Even if you broke the lease and you have a penalty to pay back, we do not recommend to not pay it at all. Yes, it’s understandable that you may not have money to pay it all in full, however, the collections agency can always offer you a payment plan.  They would be able to break the remaining balance into partial monthly payments.  This would be a good option to accept.     Getting on the payment plan will certainly send a notification back to your landlord stating that you’ve considered the payment arrangement with the collections agency.  This also will prevent other creditors cold calling you to try and collect the debt. You will also be on the road to repair your credit, since it would be somewhat tarnished, due to the fact that your landlord has reported you to a collections agency for non-payment of your lease break penalty. If you have any other questions on how to avoid breaking your apartment lease, please call 1-800-895-2550 for more information.