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.
Call a lawyer. You’re wasting your time here
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.
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?
How much time does your contract say is required for giving notice?
60 days. Which I gave
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.
You gave notice on April 3rd. I count 59 days. They’re being dicks, but it’s not 60.
I hate off by one errors
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.
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
I’m just here to tell you that anybody that says to talk to a lawyer is a jackass and is talking out their ass.
You do not deal with these matters in regular civil court, these are handled directly through whatever tenany board is in your region. Start by contacting them and ignore all the other nonsense about contacting attorneys, it’s a waste of time because all the attorney will tell you to do is to contact the tenancy board.
Assuming you have a tenancy board. In the United States, many locations do not.
