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  • I'm not a US citizen.
  • I have a rental contract for a shared student accommodation (en suite room).
  • Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, I had to leave the US.

Of course, I understand that I am legally obliged to honor the contract. However, now my circumstances have changed and I cannot afford to, now that I am no longer in the country.

Could people please advise me on what may happen in the following scenarios:

  1. I refuse to pay, and stay in my country (somewhere in Europe)
  2. I refuse to pay, but return to the US in the future:
    • on a student visa
    • on a work visa (H1-B)
    • as a tourist on an ESTA
John Smith
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    Did you try to terminate the lease? There are usually lease terms and statutory provisions that allow termination without having to pay rent for the entire lease period. Typically if the landlord finds a new tenant you are no longer liable to pay. But statutory provisions vary from state to state. In some cases they even depend on the municipality. – phoog Oct 25 '22 at 23:06

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When you breach a contract, you can get sued in local court, and if you don't show up to defend yourself, default judgment will be entered against you. Then the aggrieved party will have to collect, but the court in Washington (to invent a jurisdiction) can't enforce an order against a person in Norway (to invent another jurisdiction). So the aggrieved party would need to take enforcement of the judgment to the Norwegian courts. In the actual case of Norway, this is fairly simple, you just call an attorney in Norway to do the paperwork. It might be harder if the other jurisdiction is Belarus.

If you return to the US, even if there is a money judgment against you for the rent owed, you will not be arrested for that debt. Depending on the state (about half of the states), you might be arrested for failing to comply with a court order to pay the debt. The difference lies in refusing to comply with a court order, versus simply having a debt.

The State Department conveniently lists the reasons for denying a visa. Owing money or having an uncollected judgment against you is not one of the possible reasons, in fact even having been ordered by a court to pay, ignoring the order, and the court issuing an arrest warrant does not make you inadmissible.

user6726
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    I'll add that you might simple contact the property owner/manager and see if you can work out a mutually acceptable payment agreement. – jwh20 Oct 25 '22 at 20:01
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    There is almost never a court order to simply pay the debt outside of a domestic relations case (i.e. usually child support nonpayment), but there may be an order to provide information about your assets in a state court case that could lead to arrest. In cases where there is an order to pay the debt, inability to pay the debt if proven, is a complete defense to the order. – ohwilleke Oct 25 '22 at 21:19
  • How would having a default judgment etc. against you affect a visa application for a return visit? The OP seems to suppose they might be in trouble if they return with a visa, but I'd be inclined to think they wouldn't get the visa at all, at least until the debt had been settled. – zibadawa timmy Oct 25 '22 at 22:33
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    It's not exactly a legal question but the asker might also like to know what non-legal consequences there may be for them if they return to the States. I'm thinking their credit record will have a default/non-payment on it and their credit score may be low. That means if they want to rent again in the US or buy a car, etc., they may be denied and/or have to pay a much higher interest rate on loans. – Todd Wilcox Oct 26 '22 at 05:25
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    There is, of course, no benefit in trying to get blood from a stone. Writing a tear-jerking letter to the landlord explaining that you've moved to a slum to care for your elderly grandmother will almost certainly result in them writing off the debt, rather than fruitlessly suing you for it – Richard Oct 26 '22 at 06:50
  • The rent for shared student accommodation may not be worth the hassle/cost associated with taking it to a Norwegian court? – gerrit Oct 26 '22 at 07:33
  • @gerrit: True, but people have gone to much greater expenses just for feeling insulted. If I were the landlord and I could afford it, I might do it just to find out if it works. – Heinzi Oct 26 '22 at 12:48
  • Why would any country want to deny a visa to someone who owes money? Letting them back in is probably the best way to enforce collection of the debt? OTOH, we might not want more indigent people. – Barmar Oct 26 '22 at 14:23
  • If there's a warrant for your arrest, they probably want you to come back ... so you can be arrested. –  Oct 26 '22 at 15:33
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    @Richard: IMHO it depends on the landlord. Some will just shrug and sell the debt to a collections agency. – Kevin Oct 26 '22 at 16:50
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    @Kevin - And while that may be true, a sob story costs a stamp. A sob-email even less. – Richard Oct 26 '22 at 17:01
  • Without any firsthand experience, I had assumed that in practice, most people renting student housing would end up selling the discounted debt to a collector, who would in turn potentially file a negative credit report. In the case like this, I further assume the most debt collectors would write off the debt when they learn the debtor had absconded to another country. Anyone with real-world experience relating to this? – erickson Oct 26 '22 at 18:37
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    @erickson: Debt collectors don't write off debt. They harass you until they figure out that you're not going to pay it back, and then resell it to another debt collector. It's a whole business model (exploiting a rather large loophole in the FDCPA, which says they have to stop contacting you on request, but doesn't extend that requirement to whoever repurchases the debt). – Kevin Oct 26 '22 at 19:44
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    That makes sense. In either case, I figure this person is relatively immune to their harassment. – erickson Oct 26 '22 at 19:48
  • If you have a US credit file (can you even have one without a SSN though?) it may end up with a collection account on it, but depending on the landlord and how much money they actually lost (very likely they re-rented it the next month so you owe 1 month's rent), I can't fathom a world where they'd spend the money and time to sue you. In that case, your only consequences would be a mark on your credit record, which will only go away 7 years later, regardless of if you pay--so whatever you do, don't waste your money paying if you find out they've reported to a credit agency. – user47499 Oct 26 '22 at 20:17
  • @user47499 It's quite possible a shared student apartment would go unrented until at least the next school semester. – Bryan Krause Oct 26 '22 at 21:04
  • If OP has assets still in the US (ex: USD stored away in a US bank account) can the landlord go after these? – moonman239 Oct 26 '22 at 23:23
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    @moonman239 The landlord can do so if a) the landlord sues the ex-tenant — and getting service of court docs on the ex-tenant may be a unbreachable obstacle — and b) obtains a judgment in court, and c) has the court issue a writ of execution, and d) serves the writ of execution on the bank that holds the deposit. It may be too many steps, and too much bother. Whether it is will depend on how much money is at stake, and how the landlord weighs their time against the funds owed. – DavidRecallsMonica Oct 26 '22 at 23:39