LeaseBreak is a legitimate, free marketplace where tenants in New York City and New Jersey list sublets, lease assignments, and short-term rentals to find someone willing to take over their housing.1LeaseBreak.com. Short Term Rentals in NYC – Sublet My Apartment in NYC Posting and searching are both free, with no listing fees, subscription costs, or commissions. The platform is real and the service works as advertised, but the question most people are really asking is whether using it is safe, and that depends less on LeaseBreak than on what you do after you find a match.
What LeaseBreak Does and Where Its Role Ends
LeaseBreak is a specialized listing site. Tenants post available apartments; prospective renters browse. The platform reviews listings for accuracy and legitimacy before publishing them, which generally takes one to two days, and connects the two sides through an internal messaging system so you don’t share your phone number or email upfront.
What the platform is not is a property manager. LeaseBreak does not handle lease paperwork, collect rent, or guarantee that a landlord will approve a new occupant. Its role ends once a tenant and a prospective renter connect. Everything after that point — landlord approval, written agreements, security deposits, move-in logistics — happens between the parties. The platform is legitimate; it is also narrow. Users who expect it to shepherd a deal from first message to signed paperwork come away disappointed, and that mismatch is where some of the “scam” chatter comes from, even though nothing deceptive is happening.
Because the service focuses on New York City and New Jersey, most of the legal rules that make or break a listing on the platform come from New York law. If you are elsewhere, the platform may still work for you, but the specific statutory protections below won’t necessarily apply.
The Three Listing Types and Why the Difference Matters
The platform organizes listings into three categories. The one you choose determines how much legal and financial risk you keep after someone moves in.
- Lease assignment. You transfer your entire remaining lease to a new person. Once the landlord approves and formally releases you, the new tenant deals directly with the landlord and you walk away. This is the cleanest exit. It is also the hardest to get, because landlords can refuse an assignment for any reason, or none, in many cases.
- Sublet. You rent the unit to someone else for a set period while your name stays on the original lease. You remain responsible for rent and damage. Most sublets on the platform run a few months, though some stretch close to a year.
- Short-term rental. Furnished or unfurnished units for stays of roughly one month to several months, aimed at people relocating for work, between apartments, or trying out a neighborhood.
The gap between an assignment and a sublet isn’t paperwork trivia. It decides who pays when something goes wrong. With a sublet, you are still financially tied to the lease. With an assignment that the landlord formally accepts, you aren’t. Choosing the wrong category without understanding this is one of the most expensive mistakes a tenant can make on the platform.
Your Liability If You Sublet
If you sublet, your name stays on the lease and you remain financially responsible for everything that happens in the unit. If your subtenant stops paying, you owe the rent. If they damage the walls, stain the carpet, or break appliances, you pay for repairs. You are jointly and severally liable, which means the landlord can collect the full amount from you even if the subtenant caused the problem.
Your security deposit is at risk for damage you did not cause. Some tenants collect a separate security deposit from the subtenant to protect themselves, but enforcing that collection if the subtenant disappears can be difficult and may require small claims court.
A lease assignment eliminates this ongoing liability once the landlord formally accepts the new tenant and releases you. That is why assignments are worth pursuing even though landlords are harder to persuade. The financial difference between a sublet and an assignment can be thousands of dollars if something goes sideways.
What New York Law Gives You
Most transactions on LeaseBreak fall under New York Real Property Law Section 226-b, which governs a tenant’s right to sublet or assign a lease. The law applies to tenants in buildings with four or more residential units and gives them the right to request a sublet, provided they follow the required notice procedures.
Subletting Requests
Under Section 226-b, a landlord cannot unreasonably refuse a sublet request. If the landlord withholds consent without a legitimate reason, the tenant can request release from the lease on 30 days’ notice.2New York State Senate. New York Real Property Law 226-B – Right to Sublease or Assign Legitimate reasons for refusal include a proposed subtenant’s inability to show financial stability or a history of evictions. The landlord does not have to accept just anyone you find.
The request must go to the landlord in writing. Many practitioners send it by certified mail with return receipt requested to create a clear paper trail. An informal text message can undercut your legal position if a dispute arises.
Assignments
Unless your lease grants you a broader right, a landlord in New York can unconditionally refuse an assignment without giving any reason. If the landlord unreasonably withholds consent, your remedy is to request release from the lease on 30 days’ notice. You need the landlord’s written consent before an assignment takes effect. A sublet or assignment that doesn’t comply with these statutory requirements is treated as a substantial breach of the lease, which can trigger eviction proceedings.2New York State Senate. New York Real Property Law 226-B – Right to Sublease or Assign
Fair Housing Rules Apply to Your Listing
Even though you are an individual tenant and not a professional landlord, federal fair housing law applies. Under the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to publish any housing advertisement that expresses a preference or limitation based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 3604 – Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Housing
Your listing description cannot say things like “perfect for young professionals,” “no children,” or “seeking Christian roommate” (unless you are sharing the unit and fall under a narrow exemption). HUD regulations make clear that using words, phrases, or images conveying that a dwelling is available or unavailable to a particular group violates the law, even without discriminatory intent.4eCFR. Part 100 – Discriminatory Conduct Under the Fair Housing Act Describe the apartment — square footage, amenities, location, price, lease terms — and skip the rest.
Screening a Replacement Tenant
Finding someone to take over your lease is not enough. You want someone who will actually pay and not trash the place, because if they fail, you may be the one paying. If you run a credit check or background check on applicants, the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to you as it would to any landlord.
You must get written permission from the applicant before pulling a consumer report, and you can only obtain it for a legitimate housing-related purpose.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports If you reject someone based on what the report shows, you must provide an adverse action notice that includes the reporting agency’s name and contact information, a statement that the agency did not make the rejection decision, and notice of the applicant’s right to dispute the information and get a free copy of their report within 60 days.6Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know
When you are done with the report, you must securely dispose of it — shredding paper or permanently deleting electronic files. The law does not carve out an exception for casual landlords.
Taxes on Subletting Income
Money you receive from a subtenant counts as rental income, and the IRS expects you to report it. This applies even if the apartment is your primary residence and even if the amount you collect is less than the rent you pay to your own landlord.7Internal Revenue Service. Rental Income and Expenses – Real Estate Tax Tips Subletting income goes on Schedule E of your federal return.
You can deduct certain expenses against that income, which often reduces or eliminates the tax owed. The rent you pay your own landlord (allocated to the sublet period) is deductible as a rental expense, along with advertising costs, cleaning fees, and repairs made to prepare the unit.8Internal Revenue Service. Publication 527 – Residential Rental Property If you sublet at a loss, you likely won’t owe additional tax, but you still need to report the income.
Advance rent — payment covering a future period — is reported as income in the year you receive it, not the year it covers.7Internal Revenue Service. Rental Income and Expenses – Real Estate Tax Tips For payments received through third-party platforms, the current reporting threshold for Form 1099-K is $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions in a calendar year.9Internal Revenue Service. Form 1099-K FAQs Even below that threshold, the income is still reportable.
Why It Still Usually Beats Walking Away
If you leave without finding a replacement or negotiating an early termination, the costs compound quickly. Early termination fees written into leases commonly run two or more months’ rent, and that is often the better scenario. If your lease has no termination clause, you could owe rent for every month remaining, minus whatever the landlord recovers by re-renting the unit in states that require mitigation.
Breaking a lease does not automatically damage your credit score. The lease itself doesn’t appear on your credit report. But if you owe unpaid rent, termination fees, or damage charges and your landlord sends that debt to collections, the collections account can stay on your credit report for up to seven years, and a single entry can make it harder to rent your next apartment. Many landlords also report lease breaks to tenant screening databases, which future landlords check.
That is the backdrop against which to judge the platform. LeaseBreak is legitimate, it is free, and finding a replacement tenant through it is almost always cheaper than walking away. The service is real; the risks are real too, and they live in the sublease itself rather than in the website. Before you sign anything with the person you meet through the platform, get the key terms in writing: dates, monthly rent, which utilities each party pays, and the security deposit. Without a written agreement, disputes become your word against theirs, and the person with their name on the original lease almost always absorbs the loss.