Financial obligations of a cancelled contract

[perfexion, ASN, RN]

A hospital cancelled my contract a few months ago and I had to break my housing lease because of this. The property management company of the apartment where I was living just sent me a huge bill in the mail for fees associated with breaking the lease, plus painting, cleaning and legal fees. Am I solely responsible for this? Can't the agency help me pay this? I've tried contacting the property manager for a payment plan but they want the entire amount in full. I don't know what to do! The bill is close to $7000! Do I have any options?

[Bluebolt]

Wow, $7000 is terrible. I'm really not sure what you could do besides attempting to sue the hospital for canceling your contract and requesting they pay the fees. Although the lawyer costs and time may not be worth it.

[Rod, Male Nurse]

First off, if you had a halfway decent agency they would be assisting you through this. If you aren't making money then neither are they. Where have they been during all of this? 7k? I guess next time let the agency provide housing so its all on them.

[NedRN]

Huge consequences of arguing with a charge nurse! You also lost a few thousand in missed time. The lessons here are mostly for the future. Play nice at work and with your agency. Try to minimize your risk of cancelled assignments by picking them carefully, and perhaps changing your housing choices to ones that don't have such high cancellation fees, perhaps by letting the agency get housing for you (same risks ultimately), or getting housing from a private person rather than a management group, or an extended stay.

Right now, the housing costs are all on you. I don't get the painting costs after just a few weeks living there, or legal fees (check your lease carefully). You do have some negotiation room here, especially if you can live with the downside - being sent out to collections and having your credit rating dinged. They cannot squeeze money out of a rock and if they want to collect any compensation for their loss so if they don't want a payment plan, they will collect much less when they sell the debt to a collection agency. By the way, they have a legal duty to minimize costs by renting the apartment again. If they fail to do so, you have a potential for a lawsuit. If they do rent again before your lease is up, they are required to reduce the amount owed.

[Argo]

I would not pay it and let them put it to collection if they expected me to pay more than a lost deposit and a months rent while they rented it to someone else. Be clear that you aren't going to pay that amount, not even on a payment plan. I have actually been through this except for about half that amount and I didn't break my lease, just a crap company. It stayed on my credit for about 5 years but my mortgage underwriters weren't worried about it given my explanation.

[nja06, MSN, RN, APRN, NP, CNM]

I'm sorry this happened to you.Traveling is rough sometimes.