Domestic Violence Lease Breaks: What Florida Law Says

Your tenant calls on a Tuesday night. She's a victim of domestic violence, she needs out of the lease, and somewhere along the way she was told Florida law lets her do it. Maybe she mentions a statute number. You want to do right by her — and you also have a mortgage, a lease with eight months left, and no idea what you're actually required to do.

It isn't the answer most articles give you: Florida has no statute that lets a domestic violence victim break a lease. That's the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it. Plenty still governs what happens next, and a few things here can land you in real trouble.

Does Florida law let a domestic violence victim break a lease?

No. As of September 2026, no provision of Florida's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act gives a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual violence, or stalking the right to terminate a lease early. Bills to create that right were filed in the 2026 session and did not become law. What governs instead is your lease, Florida Statute 83.595, and — if you take federal housing money — VAWA.

That's a flat statement, so here's exactly what we checked, because a claim that no law exists is still a claim. We read Chapter 83 in full and searched the text: "domestic violence," "dating violence," and "sexual violence" appear zero times. "Stalking" appears once, in section 83.515, on the list of convictions for which a landlord may disqualify someone from working as an apartment employee. Nothing to do with tenants.

We read Chapter 741, Florida's domestic violence chapter, and searched it too: "rental agreement" appears zero times. Chapter 741 builds injunction remedies, not landlord-tenant remedies. Florida's Fair Housing Act in Chapter 760 doesn't list domestic violence victims as a protected class and contains no termination provision.

We searched Chapters 83, 741, and 760 — and that's the limit of it. We didn't read every chapter of the Florida Statutes, and we didn't run a case-law search. If your situation is expensive or contested, that's a question for a Florida landlord-tenant attorney, not a blog.

Why you've heard there is a statute — and what happened to it

You may have been told the magic number is "83.676." A lot of people were. Section 83.676 is not Florida law and never has been. It's the section number two 2026 bills proposed to create, and both died in committee on March 13, 2026.

Senate Bill 142, filed by Senator Bracy Davis, opens with the line that settles it:

"Section 1. Section 83.676, Florida Statutes, is created to read:"
— SB 142 (2026), filed text

A section a bill proposes to create is a section that doesn't exist yet. SB 142 died in Judiciary. Its identical House companion, HB 107, died in the Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee the same day. Had either passed, it would have taken effect July 1, 2026 — prohibiting eviction because of victim status, allowing early termination with documentation, and requiring lock changes. None of that is law. It's a description of a bill that failed.

We're being specific about this because an earlier version of this very post got it wrong, and said you were required to honor a "valid 83.676 termination." That was incorrect, it's been replaced, and if you acted on it we're sorry. If you're reading a competitor's article that still cites 83.676, check the Chapter 83 index yourself — the sequence runs 83.67 straight to 83.681.

Chapter 83 does have an early-out — but not for this

Chapter 83 does contain a narrow, non-waivable early-termination right that works the way people imagine 83.676 working — it just belongs to a different group of tenants. Florida Statute 83.682 lets a servicemember terminate:

"Any servicemember may terminate his or her rental agreement by providing the landlord with a written notice of termination to be effective on the date stated in the notice which is at least 30 days after the landlord's receipt of the notice if any of the following criteria are met: (a) The servicemember is required, pursuant to a permanent change of station orders, to move 35 miles or more from the location of the rental premises…"
— FS 83.682(1)

A servicemember gets out only if a qualifying military event happened, only with 30 days' written notice, and only with orders or a commanding officer's verification attached. It isn't a walk-away right either — it's conditional and documented. And the legislature locked it down:

"The provisions of this section may not be waived or modified by the agreement of the parties under any circumstances."
— FS 83.682(5)

That means your lease can't sign away a servicemember's right. Florida knows how to do this. When it wants to give a class of tenants a termination right, it says so and forbids you from contracting around it. It did that for servicemembers. It hasn't done it for domestic violence victims.

The same contrast shows up in the anti-discrimination rules. FS 83.67(3) says a landlord "shall not discriminate against a servicemember in offering a dwelling unit for rent or in any of the terms of the rental agreement." There's no parallel sentence for abuse survivors anywhere in the chapter. Don't stretch 83.682 to cover a DV tenant — it doesn't reach, and reading it that way is how the 83.676 myth spread in the first place.

83.682 isn't the chapter's only exit. FS 83.63 lets a tenant terminate after casualty damage — but it turns on the premises being "damaged or destroyed other than by the wrongful or negligent acts of the tenant so that the enjoyment of the premises is substantially impaired." It's about the condition of the building, not the circumstances of the tenant, so it won't carry a domestic violence case either.

So what governs? Your lease, and FS 83.595

With no statute in play, two things decide the outcome: what your lease says, and what Florida law lets you do when a tenant leaves early. FS 83.595 sets out four choices — and it only reaches them once one of three things has happened:

"If the tenant breaches the rental agreement for the dwelling unit and the landlord has obtained a writ of possession, or the tenant has surrendered possession of the dwelling unit to the landlord, or the tenant has abandoned the dwelling unit, the landlord may: (1) Treat the rental agreement as terminated and retake possession for his or her own account, thereby terminating any further liability of the tenant; (2) Retake possession of the dwelling unit for the account of the tenant, holding the tenant liable for the difference between the rent stipulated to be paid under the rental agreement and what the landlord is able to recover from a reletting… (3) Stand by and do nothing, holding the lessee liable for the rent as it comes due; or (4) Charge liquidated damages, as provided in the rental agreement, or an early termination fee…"
— FS 83.595

Option 1 is the compassionate release, and it's yours to give. Option 2 comes with a string attached — if you hold the tenant liable for the shortfall, you have to actually try to re-rent:

"If the landlord retakes possession, the landlord has a duty to exercise good faith in attempting to relet the premises, and any rent received by the landlord as a result of the reletting must be deducted from the balance of rent due from the tenant. For purposes of this subsection, the term 'good faith in attempting to relet the premises' means that the landlord uses at least the same efforts to relet the premises as were used in the initial rental or at least the same efforts as the landlord uses in attempting to rent other similar rental units but does not require the landlord to give a preference in renting the premises over other vacant dwelling units that the landlord owns or has the responsibility to rent;"
— FS 83.595(2)

Three things fall out of that. You must make at least the same efforts you used the first time, or the same efforts you use on your other similar units — the statute accepts either. You don't have to fill it ahead of your other vacancies — and note the statute says "owns or has the responsibility to rent," so units you manage for someone else count too. And whatever rent the new tenant does pay comes off what the old tenant owes; you don't get both.

Option 4 is where most landlords get surprised. You can only charge an early termination fee if all of these were true before anyone moved in: you and the tenant agreed to it when the rental agreement was made, the amount "does not exceed 2 months' rent," the tenant is required to give no more than 60 days' notice, and the tenant signed a separate addendum in substantially the form the statute spells out. No signed addendum, no fee. Bolting one on after the fact doesn't work.

The security deposit follows its normal path either way. Deduct for unpaid rent you're actually owed and for damage beyond normal wear, send your notice on the statutory clock, and don't treat the deposit as a penalty for leaving.

An injunction can move possession — not the lease

This is the part landlords most often misread. A court can reach into your property, and it does it through FS 741.30. On an injunction for protection against domestic violence, whether temporary and ex parte under subsection (5)(a) or after notice and hearing under (6)(a), the court may grant:

"2. Awarding to the petitioner the exclusive use and possession of the dwelling that the parties share or excluding the respondent from the residence of the petitioner."
— FS 741.30(6)(a)

Read what that does and stop there. It reallocates possession between two people. It does not end your lease, it does not take anyone off it, and it does not release your tenant from rent. If both parties are on the lease and the court excludes one of them, you still have a lease with both names on it and a rent obligation that didn't change.

What it does change is your exposure. Once an order excludes someone from the residence, letting that person back in — handing over a key, opening the door as a favor — puts you crosswise with a court order and with the person the order protects. If you're served with one, read it, file it, and follow it exactly as written.

VAWA applies only if you take federal money

If your property gets federal housing assistance, a second set of rules applies and it's not optional. The Violence Against Women Act protects tenants in a "covered housing program" from being evicted or denied housing because they're a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

"Covered housing program" is a defined list at 34 U.S.C. § 12491(a)(3): public housing and Section 8 (both vouchers and project-based), Section 202, Section 811, HOME, HOPWA, McKinney-Vento, rural housing programs, the Housing Trust Fund, certain veterans' housing — and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit — plus a catch-all at (P) for any other federal affordable-housing program the responsible agency identifies. The tax-credit one catches people. If you're in a LIHTC deal, you're covered even if you've never thought of yourself as subsidized.

Two VAWA mechanisms matter here. Bifurcation lets you remove the abuser from the lease without evicting the victim — but only where that person "engages in criminal activity directly relating to" the violence, not simply because you believe they are the abuser. Emergency transfer lets a covered tenant move to another unit under the program. Neither is a right to walk away from the lease.

And if you're a private landlord taking no federal money, VAWA doesn't reach you. There's no Florida statute filling that gap. That's a real hole, and the legislature has looked at it and declined to close it.

Local rules in Orlando and Tampa

Local ordinances matter here, and they do less than the headlines suggest. Orange County Code § 22-52(a) — which sits in the county’s Fair Housing chapter, not its Tenant’s Bill of Rights — makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of a person’s "actual or perceived status as a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, or stalking." That protection is explicit. Two things bound it. It’s an anti-discrimination rule, not a termination right: it governs how you treat a survivor, never whether the lease ends. And § 22-55 exempts an owner who owns not more than three single-family houses and rents them without a licensee or agent — an exemption you lose the moment you use a property manager or a listing agent.

There’s also a live question about whether the county can enforce it against a landlord at all, and we’re not going to pretend it’s settled. FS 83.425, effective July 1, 2023, preempts local regulation of "the landlord-tenant relationship, and all other matters covered under this part," expressly "including, but not limited to, the screening process used by a landlord in approving tenancies." Cutting the other way: that preemption is bounded to matters covered under Chapter 83 Part II, while housing discrimination lives in Chapter 760 — and FS 760.34(3) expressly contemplates "a local fair housing law." We found no Florida court decision, Attorney General opinion, or county statement that resolves the conflict. Orange County says nothing about preemption. Hillsborough County, for its part, says that as of July 2023 residential landlord-tenant matters there "are governed by statewide oversight."

Don’t let the uncertainty tempt you. Federal fair housing law can still reach this conduct regardless of what any county can or can’t enforce — not because survivors are a protected class, but through sex discrimination and disparate impact, which is covered further down. And discriminating against a survivor is a bad idea on its own merits. One more gap worth naming honestly: we could not confirm whether the City of Orlando has its own ordinance covering this. The municipal-code mirror we could reach is demonstrably out of date, so read that as "we don’t know," not "there isn’t one." If your property is inside city limits, ask the city.

What to actually do when a tenant asks

Knowing you're not obligated doesn't tell you what to do. Start here.

1. Don't answer on the phone. "Let me look at your lease and get back to you tomorrow" is a complete response. It buys you a day and commits you to nothing.
2. Read your own lease first. Many leases already include an early-termination clause or a military clause. If yours has one, start there — but a lease clause still has to comply with FS 83.595(4), and FS 83.682 can't be contracted around at all.
3. Check whether you're a covered housing program. Section 8, public housing, LIHTC. If yes, VAWA is in play and you should call counsel before doing anything.
4. Decide which 83.595 option you're taking, and say so in writing. Option 1 is usually the right call — release, keep the prorated rent through move-out, settle the deposit normally. It's clean, it's defensible, and re-renting a unit in Orlando or Tampa usually costs less than chasing a tenant who has already fled.
5. Ask for the minimum, and don't interrogate. You may ask for written notice and a move-out date. If you want documentation, an injunction or police report is plenty. You don't need where she's going, who she's staying with, or what happened. That's not a statutory limit — no statute governs this — it's a judgment call, and asking more can look like discrimination if you're in Orange County, or like retaliation anywhere.
6. Keep it confidential. Don't tell the other tenants, the landscaper, or a future landlord doing a reference check. Disclosure is how a safety problem becomes your liability problem.
7. Handle co-tenants separately. If someone else is on the lease, they're still on it. Their obligation doesn't disappear because another tenant left. Work out a lease modification, or hold them to the agreement — but do it as its own decision, not as a side effect.
8. Document everything. Written notice, your written response, the move-out date, the deposit accounting. If this ever gets argued, the paper trail is the whole case.

What not to do

A few of these carry real statutory teeth, so they're worth separating from the judgment calls above.

Don't change the locks on a tenant who still has a right of possession. This one is explicit. FS 83.67(2):

"A landlord of any dwelling unit governed by this part shall not prevent the tenant from gaining reasonable access to the dwelling unit by any means, including, but not limited to, changing the locks or using any bootlock or similar device."
— FS 83.67(2)

Keep three situations apart. A tenant asking you to re-key her own unit, where nobody else is on the lease, is a maintenance and lease question — saying yes quickly is usually the right call. A court order excluding someone from the residence is an instruction you follow. And locking out a tenant who still holds possession is a self-help eviction, prohibited whatever the circumstances.

The trap sits between the first and the third. If the person your tenant wants shut out is also on the lease, re-keying at her request is the third situation, not the first — you'd be locking out someone with a legal right of possession, and your sympathy for the reason won't change that. What you need there is a court order, not a locksmith. Tell her so, point her at the injunction process, and re-key the moment an order excludes him.

The penalty is not theoretical. Under FS 83.67(6), a landlord who violates any part of that section "shall be liable to the tenant for actual and consequential damages or 3 months' rent, whichever is greater, and costs, including attorney's fees" — and "subsequent or repeated violations that are not contemporaneous with the initial violation" draw separate awards.

Don't invent a fee. If there's no signed separate addendum, there's no early termination fee to charge.

Don't treat victim status as a screening factor. Refusing an applicant over a protective order in her history is what Orange County Code § 22-52(a) prohibits, subject to the § 22-55 exemption and the open preemption question above — and it's a fair-housing risk anywhere regardless of how that question comes out. HUD's guidance on housing discrimination against domestic violence victims is explicit that because the overwhelming majority of victims are women, a policy that lands hardest on them can be challenged as sex discrimination through disparate impact — even when the policy never mentions domestic violence. Keep your screening criteria consistent and written.

Don't evict the household over the incident. This is the mistake that draws complaints. A zero-tolerance clause applied after a violent episode, or an eviction triggered by repeated 911 calls from the unit, puts the victim out for her abuser's conduct — and HUD treats exactly that pattern as a disparate-impact problem. If a local nuisance ordinance is pushing you toward it because the calls count against your property, that's a conversation with counsel, not a notice to the tenant.

Don't retaliate against the remaining tenant. If the victim leaves and a co-tenant stays, you don't get to evict them because the situation became inconvenient.

Don't tell your tenant "Florida law requires me to let you out." It doesn't. Say what's true: your lease says X, here's what I'm willing to do.

When to call an attorney

Get real legal advice when the abuser is on the lease and you're deciding who owes what; when you're served with an injunction naming your property; when you're in any covered housing program; when a co-tenant disputes the arrangement; or when the amount in dispute is more than a couple of months' rent. This is a situation with a safety dimension, and the cost of an hour of counsel is small next to getting it wrong.

There's a version of this that goes well. The tenant gets out safely, you get the unit back in decent shape and re-rented, and nobody ends up in county court. Getting there is mostly about knowing what you actually owe — less than the internet told you, and more than nothing.

If you'd rather not be the person taking that Tuesday-night call, that's a fair thing to want. Handling it is part of what managing Florida rentals involves, and it's the kind of call we take for owners across Orlando and Tampa. A free rental analysis is a reasonable place to start.

This article is general information for Florida landlords, not legal advice. Statutes change. Verify current law or talk to a Florida attorney before acting on a specific situation. Last verified against primary sources on September 12, 2026.