What does your lease say about this?

And just to be clear: yes, you are being penalized. That is what happens when you break a legal contract, there are penalties and you agreed to them when you signed your lease. The bottom line here is that you don't have an acceptable legal reason to break your lease, and you are likely going to have to pay for it.

That being said, there are laws to protect you to a degree. For instance, your landlord can charge you rent to cover their losses for the time you agreed to pay for the lease that you are now no longer willing to pay because you are moving, but they cannot continue to charge you rent once they find a new tenant and that tenant moves in and they are required by law to make reasonable efforts to find a new tenant as soon as possible.

I also think you should look into the legality of your job moving you to your detriment so far that you have to break your lease. Depending on the agreement you have with your job, that could be illegal.

Breaking a lease The landlord can charge you for all 5 months. Sad but true.

Check tenant landlord rights... I got out of a lease without paying a fee because my new job was more than 20 miles away. This was like 10 years ago though so not sure if still a thing

I don’t think it’s being predatory you’re just breaching contract so they have the right to charge for the remaining rent. What’s weird is that you’re forced to move but your job isn’t covering it? How can they force you to do that without covering your expenses..did you tell them you were currently in a one-year lease? I would push this on them, they don’t have the right to make you relocate.

"extremely predatory"? You signed a legal contract guaranteeing you'd stay there for at least one year, and now you're dipping out early. What is the landlord supposed to do, congratulate you on your new job and eat the costs?

If I were you, I would sublease for the remaining months. Or, if the lease doesn't allow sublets, just don't tell them haha. This works better when your tenant is trustworthy to keep things below radar.

Look at your lease, first. Where the lease is silent you look to landlord tenant law. In Washington the landlord has a duty to mitigate, which simply means if they lease to someone else you don’t have to pay rent for the time period the apartment is occupied; the can’t “double dip.” Obviously, if you can find a sublessor or someone to take over the lease it is to your benefit. Also, an eviction takes time and is costly so if you want to play hardball offer them something like 4k and say “take it or evict me.” They can always tell you to go choke, of course. Also, your municipality may have specific other lease limitations, especially Seattle/ Puget Sound.

Some landlords will forgo the charges if you can find another qualified renter to take over for you… I’ve done that in the past, but that was many years ago.

The fee to break your lease should be specified in your contract. We are renting a house and ours would be 2 months rent to break the lease which is over 5k

You have the right to break the lease, with the lease-break fees specified in your lease agreement (contract). The landlord typically has no such option -- to break the lease and kick you out. But the landlord is being predatory for insisting you live up to the contract you signed?

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Natural you should feel penalized as the contract you signed stated that you would be for contract violation. Your landlord can not prevent your moving nor force you to pay money without taking civil action. That you "feel forced" to break a lease to take advantage of a better job opportunity rather than making a free choice to do so seems a bit distorted.

These apartments are rolling scams where the “manager” throws a bunch of phony costs at you when you leave. Is was stuck at some huge apartment facility for a few months between homes and they weren’t getting a dime when I left. Obvious bullshit.