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
IANAL. It’s the other way around: You do everything as required per your contract. If the company believes you owe them money for June, they will sue you if you don’t pay.
If trouble is on the horizon it is however advisable to contact an actual lawyer in advance to check your paperwork in case you missed anything.
We signed one contract that ends April 30th. I might call a lawyer and see what I could do.
You should definitely talk to a lawyer, as this is going to depend on your local laws and ordinances.
Does that lease agreement mention auto converting to month to month? If so, what does it say about lease termination? I’ve seen some that require 60 days notice.
Unless there are some lawyers here, the best advice would be “talk to a lawyer.”
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).
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.
Sorry to be Mr Hindsight here, but please join a renters’ association yesterday. If they’re anywhere near as good and cheap as was my experience, it’s money extremely well spent.
No clue what that is, so I shall Google for info. Thank you
My translation was a little off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_union
In my experience it’s much less grassroots than the article makes it sound: these are well established organisations, they have specialised lawyers on the payroll, and for a yearly fee you get the right to consult them in cases like this one. And when the case is clear enough they will get active on your behalf.
Again, I hope something like that is an option where you live.
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.
I don’t know where you live, but where I live you have to give 60 days’ notice to end a month-to-month tenancy.
If this is the case where you live too, they knew that and are probably intentionally trying to trap you for 60 more days. You may not actually have the right to end your tenancy at the end of May.
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?
Just want to say to consult a lawyer because I’m not one. Don’t listen to anyone here, me included. Speak to a real lawyer lol. But here is my take:
Just leave on May 31st. What will happen is the landlord will simply steal your security deposit and claim that you didn’t give enough notice. We were also on a month to month lease. You are not under a contract through June and shouldn’t be obligated to pay June. This is what these pieces of shit always do. You can either get a lawyer or eat the deposit. Literally the same thing happened to us 5 years ago when we moved out of our apartment during covid to buy a house. I gave that fucking cocksucker like 2 months notice. He stole my deposit and claimed I gave him a week’s notice. He also claimed we ruined the kitchen which was 100% absolutely false. We cleaned so well before leaving. I ate the deposit because i didn’t want to go to small claims court when covid was at its peak. The fuck called my bluff because i threatened to get a lawyer and I said i would follow a suit. He must have banked on me not following through for that amount of money - he was right. Welcome to renting!
NAL, but always sue, and sue for more than you are owed. Court is a negotiation and judges do not take kindly to landlords trying to pull a fast one and landing in their court.
I have done this myself to a scammy corporate landlord and they settled out of court after a barrage of threatening letters, subsequent “you sued the wrong party”, and “we’re willing to drop what we were going to charge you if you drop this case” letters. I ended up about $400 up including court costs for filing and serving, just for ignoring letters.
Private landlords, who I’ve also sued, are much more naively willing to go in front of a judge. If you have any case at all, the judge is likely to eat the landlord alive- unless you are a deadbeat tenant you will walk out of court probably with 3x damages.
For legal questions you need to specify jurisdiction the answer may depend vastly. Typically, you may have a notice period to do when leaving and the lease would renew automatically if nobody denounce it.
But again detail would depend on your specif jurisdiction, if not done yet, join your local tenant union
