Breaking a Lease Due to Landlord's Failure to Make Repairs?

Each state has it's own laws for landlord/tenant matters but I imagine they are very similar. I did some research when I had a similar situation in NM and the law is very specific that a tenant may break a lease when the condition of the property is damaged to such an extent to make it uninhabitable.

 

A little off topic but how many of you have experience with breaking leases in general? I've never done it before but we found a situation with a good deal on a house to buy, and our lease is not up yet. Hopefully the only consequences will be those that are obvious on the written lease (i.e. not getting the deposit back). Our landlord has neglected to do anything since we've been here anyway, including outdoor maintenance and some repairs, though fortunately there hasn't been anything major.

 

i've broken a lease once. i was just renting a room with a couple of other dudes though. i just lost my deposit.

 

This is a very good resource from the Austin Tenants' Counsel: http://www.housing-rights.org/repairs.html

 

I broke a lease on an apartment a few years back. We were told that as long as someone moved into the unit within a month of us moving out, there would be no penalty. We figured that there would be no problem since the people that worked in the office said they had a waiting list and my roommate and I at the time had to get on the waiting list there before we moved in. As it turned out, no one moved in and we were on the hook for the rest of the rent on our lease, which was five or six months worth. We had no choice but to move out at the time we did, but it was a pain to have to pay all that rent after the fact.