My lease, which I bought from a lawyer about a year ago, has a clause "early termination without penalty" where the tenant must give 60 days notice and pay an extra two months rent fee in order to move out early (Two months rent would be $1800 in my case..). It does not say in the lease what happens if the tenant disregards that 2 months fee and moves out anyway. They passed a law here a year or two ago in my state that allows landlords to pursue tenants for the entire lease terms rent, so I suppose that would be the alternative.

Maybe I'm wrong, but 2 months rent sounds a bit extreme to me. I would think many of them would say "screw it", and move out anyway, and then I'd be stuck trying to collect it from them. I was thinking of changing the fee to something more reasonable, like a $500 fee + 60 days notice to break the lease, in which I think I'd be more likely to be paid the fee.

What do people think, should I just leave the clause as is, or change it? My main goal is to dissuade people from breaking the lease very early on--if they wanted to do it when there are only two or three months left until the end of the lease it wouldn't bother me as much.

Also, how does one collect on something like this, do you actually have to file a lawsuit against them? Is it ever worth the time and money to pursue people legally for something like this?