I’ll try to keep this brief. Our lease ends at the end of this month, APRIL. my wife and I have not signed anything to renew any lease whatsoever. We submitted our notice on April 3rd and our last will be May 31st.
They are telling me that per our “contract” that we have to pay for the full month of JUNE as well. Even though our actual contract ends April 30th. And we are doing a month to month for May (this is what happens when you don’t sign or renew the lease) So we have not signed a new contract or agreed to anything, we gave a move out notice, and they’re telling us no.
I also have all documents and “receipts” to back up this claim.
I’d ask them to show you were in the contract it says you have to pay for June. But, id also talk to a lawyer and start looking for a new place to live.
We already found a new place to live. Hence the move out notice lol.
Look up state laws about deposit timeframes. If they don’t return the deposit, then file a small claims lawsuit. Super easy to do, usually you can do it online. If you’re moving out of the area then you’ll have a hard time doing it because you usually have to appear in person.
Call a lawyer. You’re wasting your time here
Reiterating what others have said about talking to an attorney. Most will consult with you for free and you’ll know if you have a case.
Anecdote: my brother is an attorney and I got really sick, spent a month hospitalized and when I got out had to move back to my parents house because I needed help day to day while I got better.
My brother broke my lease on my apartment using ADA rules (I’m in the US) but they tried to keep my deposit for normal wear and tear items.
All it took was a letter to the corporate office on his firm’s legal letterhead, with the relevant statutes that said they couldn’t keep my deposit for the items they listed, and a reminder that if we sued and won they’d owe me double in damages plus all costs and his fee.
Idk what state your in but landlords withholding deposits usually results in triple damages (eg. You get three times your deposit in damages if the court finds in your favor).
Not my state. Here you’re entitled to return of the deposit plus damages up to the amount of the deposit (so double, basically).
They may require two months notice.
They received 2 months notice. April and May.
your notice was submitted april third. if they require ‘two months’ notice, the month of april may not ‘count’ towards that.
In theory that should be prorated then, depending on the contract dates. Anywhere I have ever lived we have bridges two places to live for a couple days while moving and cleaning, and I have never been on the hook for an entire month.
This is all going to depend on what exactly the lease says as well as local laws. OP needs to talk to a lawyer.
Those 3 days in April may be counted as less than a month.
April 30 plus 60 days is June 3 which is in the middle of the June lease period.
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A legal question without the information where in the world you live (country, state, province) cannot possibly get reliable answers.
This is just small claims court. You can just leave and not pay for a month you aren’t there, I wouldn’t expect the security deposit back though.
Move out first, then if you don’t get the security deposit back, try small claims court. You have to decide if the deposit is worth the fight though. It’s around $250 to file and serve your landlord. Assuming you win, there’s no enforcement of them paying you. You would need to then take that order to another judge and likely provide details on how to get that money back to get an order that should eventually get that money back.
It’s usually worth it because
- You include court costs in the amount you sue for
- You include the highest possible rate for your time in the amount you sue for
- You include all incident expenses
Plus, the landlord has an asset you can put a lien on in case of non-payment, the place you rented. It’s not the same as suing someone with no assets where the debt is uncollectible.
NAL, just a former renter who got screwed over a few times, then stopped getting screwed over after I figured out that court is actually good for tenants and bad for shady landlords.
It would be helpful if have specified the country but since you didn’t, I presume that you are a USian?
Yeah, because in Germany it’s normal to require 3 months’ notice.
Assuming you are in the US, you can sue over anything you want to. But there is a cost to that, and your management company may be banking on that cost being higher than your rent.
Also, if you have all the documents, you should be able to read those and learn what stipulations there are if the lease terminates and you are a month-to-month situation. It could be that you needed to give them more notice. They could have buried it in the fine print. It would suck to pay a lawyer money only to be told “yup, they can do it”, and now you are out more money.
What does your contract say?
IANAL. Also IDKWYL (I don’t know wher you live), but in the sane Western world (the EU), there’s no need for a notice in your case - usually it’s a good idea to check with the landlords/tenants wether they plan on renewing the lease or not so you both know where the other side is standing.
And, of course, since the contract is time-bound, the assumption is that both possibilities (renewal and no renewal) are on the table, and neither require any side to go out of their way to announce their intent on what happens after the contract expires.
The ‘default’ option is no renewal - otherwise there is no meaning in making it time-bound and burdening the parties with the need to re-establish a new agreement each contract term. So the need to give a notice of “I plan to do xy after the contract” makes no sense, let alone it carrying contractual punishments.
You weren’t required to give a notice. Even if the contract stated so, that clause would most likely get nullified, which I sincerely doubt (again, in most of Europe), since it disproportionally and predatorily benefits one party.
And again, IANAL. You should get one.
But, were I your lawyer (which I most definitely am not), I would scold you for writing the notice in the firdt place since it puts you in a submissive position (your landlord can now claim that by giving notice you “showed” that you “think” you “owe” the landlord notice, ergo you owe them money for the 2 days in May (assuming a 30-day notice), which they conveniently round up to an entire month. I sincerely hope you didn’t include explicit (and unnecessary) wording along the lines of THIS IS A 30-DAY NOTICE AS PER $WHATEVER ANNOUNCING OUR INTENTION TO MOVE OUT BY DATE.
Of course, this statement makes no sense. The contract meets its natural end by the date given and that’s it. No notices, no payments, no apartment rented out. A renewal requires the good-will of both parties.
My IANAL advice for you going forward is: Stick to the German philosophy - keep things as brief as possible to give the “enemy” less ammo on the one, and to deal with any edge-cases that don’t go in your favour.
It’s a delicate balance. A fine art, even - the art of writing contracts. And it’s hard.
A good contract leaves no room for large gaps in interpretation (loopholes), but allows some flexibility. It also keeps the parties on equal footing (neither subjegated to the others) is in itself a work of fine art.
Bad contracts are (or should be) treated as insults. Shuld the insult be bad enough, ripping the piece of paper conveying the contract out of protest. (Remember - the contract is not the piece of paper, but the words on it and an oral agreement is just as valid as a written contract, but harder to prove - sometimes the legislature decides to nullify all oral contracts for specific “high-impact” things like home sale, but that’s another can of worms).
Going forward, do not be afraid to reject contracts and call for a middle ground (suggest amendments) which protect your rights and interests. Not doing it is a terrible idea - the only thing you have to “lose” in such a case is all the obligations that weigh you down from the bad contract.
Germans would actually, I assure you, find it insulting if you just accepted the initial proposal of a contract if it isn’t a fixed template given by the Minstries (in that case not amending is acceptable since they strike a good balance, but amending is by no means impossible - these templates are, after all, mere suggestions meant to be acceptable for the majority of uses/circumstances).
In some states, after a year lease is fulfilled, if no future negotiations are made, the lease becomes a month-to-month contract.
Even still, not only is there no way that you have to pay for May or June without having signed anything, you very likely provided them with some kind of sign on collateral like most lease deals require, like first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, something like that. That should all be coming back to you.
How much time does your contract say is required for giving notice?
60 days. Which I gave
You gave notice on April 3rd. I count 59 days. They’re being dicks, but it’s not 60.
Do your math again. 4/3 to 5/31 is less than 60 days.
But also you’ll want to go through the rental agreement and your local laws to see if they can force this on you. You may just default to a month-to-month, but you may not.
Doesn’t this kind of depend on where you live? Lol
You have to start with local laws. They’re different depending on where you are. Including city.
I’m with all the advice about consulting a lawyer to figure out where you stand legally, but most likely a lawyer is too expensive for the amount in dispute. Definitely also investigate small claims court in your area or any tenants rights organizations
