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Ordered 60 Miles Away: End the Lease, the Phone, the Internet and the Cable — No Termination Fee

A Montana Army or Air National Guard member ordered to a permanent duty station more than 60 miles from the residence may terminate the residential lease, and may terminate a cellular phone, telephone exchange, internet access or multichannel video programming contract that cannot be had at comparable quality and cost at the new station. No early termination fee and no damages for the early termination are payable. Written notice with a copy of the orders takes effect 45 days after delivery.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

A Montana Army or Air National Guard member ordered to a permanent duty station more than 60 miles from the residence may terminate the residential lease, and may terminate a cellular phone, telephone exchange, internet access or multichannel video programming contract that cannot be had at comparable quality and cost at the new station. No early termination fee and no damages for the early termination are payable. Written notice with a copy of the orders takes effect 45 days after delivery.

What it's worth: Lease and telecom contracts ended without early termination fees or damages, on 45 days’ written notice

  • What this is worth is the penalty avoided, and that depends entirely on how much of the lease and of the contract terms remained. No sum is claimed.
  • The weight is a rough stand-in for a broken lease plus one or two device contracts, not a promise about any particular agreement.
  • It removes a charge; it does not refund what has already been paid. The section says nothing about refunding prepaid rent or unused service.

Who is entitled to it

  • The termination right belongs to the service member who holds the orders.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: Termination takes effect 45 days after the notice is delivered
  1. 1Check the distance first. The lease limb turns on being ordered to a permanent duty station MORE THAN 60 MILES from the residence covered by the lease. A shorter move does not open it.
  2. 2The service-contract limb has a different test and it is not a distance one. The contract must have been entered into before the reassignment, and the service must not be available at the new station at comparable quality and cost.
  3. 3"Service contract" is defined and the definition is wide: cellular phone service, telephone exchange service, internet access service, or multichannel video programming service. Cable and satellite television are inside it.
  4. 4Send written notice of termination together with a copy of the military orders. Hand delivery, post and electronic delivery are all permitted by the section, so an emailed notice with the orders attached is enough.
  5. 5Diary the date. Termination is effective 45 DAYS AFTER DELIVERY of the notice, not on the day you send it and not on the day you leave.
  6. 6Send a separate notice to each provider. One notice to the landlord does nothing about the phone contract, and the two limbs of the section have different tests.
  7. 7No early termination fee and no other damages arising from the early termination may be charged. If a provider bills one anyway, the section is the answer and it was enacted in 2023, so a call-centre script may not know it exists.
  8. 8Read the definitions before assuming you are covered. The part applies to a member of the Montana Army or Air National Guard on active duty, and active duty means at least 14 consecutive days of full-time state military duty or full-time National Guard duty under federal law.
Form
Written notice of termination with a copy of the military orders
File with
Your landlord, and separately each service provider
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionMontana’s military lease-termination right is not in the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Title 70, chapter 24, part 4 was read in full this session — sections 70-24-401 to 70-24-442 — and §70-24-441, "Termination by landlord or tenant", is nothing but notice periods of seven days for a week-to-week and thirty days for a month-to-month tenancy, with no armed-forces provision anywhere. Part 2, the rental agreements part, is five sections and mentions the military nowhere. A tenant who reads the tenancy act and concludes Montana gives them nothing has read the wrong title.
CorrectionThe telecom half is regularly reported as a right to cancel "if you deploy". It is not. The trigger is a reassignment to a new permanent duty station, and the further test is that the SERVICE is unavailable at comparable quality and cost there. A provider that serves the new station at the same price is entitled to keep the contract on foot.
Worth knowingThe part is Montana National Guard Civil Relief and its definitions are narrower than the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. A federal reservist or an active-duty member of another component looks to the federal act, whose lease-termination rule is written differently and does not carry this 60-mile figure.
Known gapThe section names no remedy for a provider or landlord who charges a fee regardless — no penalty, no attorney fees, no enforcement body. Whether a member must sue in district court to recover a wrongly charged termination fee was not established, and no Montana agency publishes a complaint route for it.

Sources

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