being charged a full month’s rent after moving out

By veronica Baylon

our annual lease agreement ended last May 31, 2010. after that we were one a monthly basis lease. before may 31, i asked my husband to inform the leasing office that we were moving out by june 30. he talked to the people there and told them that we were moving. he asked them if there was something that he needed to to. they told him that everything was okey and so he left the office. he told me when he came back that he has informed them of our intention to leave and that they said everything was okey and we didn’t need to do anything.

and so we moved out at the end of June. when we turned over the keys on July 1, we were told that they were charging us an extra month’s rent because we failed to give them a written notice. it’s in our contract. i told them that i forgot that it had to be a written notice. but my husband was there at the office to notify them of our intention to leave. how come they made him think everything was alright, that he didn’t need to do anything else? how come they never reminded him that he had to give a written notice? they just told me to read my contract. 
i feel like they didn’t remind my husband about the written notice so they can charge us an extra month’s rent. i feel like they did it on purpose. what can happen to me if i refuse to pay them? they can keep my deposit of $500, but I really don’t want to pay $1730.
please help. i feel so bad about this.

Edited on: Monday, November 15th, 2010 6:23 pm

4 Responses to “being charged a full month’s rent after moving out”

My response: (We welcome stories, examples, explanations, answers and a touch of your personality)
 

anonymous

July 5th, 2010 5:29 pm

Not having a lease termination in writing is risky period. You now are faced with a here-say problem (your word against theirs) As far as the law goes, you are probably stuck. In this situation it wouldn’t make any sense to go to court over the lease termination fee, because your landlord would win. All they would need to do is show the courts the lease, and written termination requirement. (Its a sure paper trail showing that you breached the agreement)

Ethically you’re right, the manager should have reminded you of the written notice requirement. And because they didn’t AND because your husband had given them proper verbal notice; you still ought to consider filing a complaint. Most likely, your landlord will revers the charge after you file a formal landlord complaint… but even if they don’t– it will show up on their public record. So either way its win win. You’ll need to decide if you want to fork over $35 to file a formal complaint. I would think it would be worth it. That’s up to you. Realistically, its your only real option.

To file a landlord complaint you can click on the File Complaint link found on this page. (towards the tops)

Best of luck– enjoy your new place.


veronica Baylon

July 9th, 2010 1:00 pm

If a file a complaint, you think they’ll be scared of the blemish on their record? why will they be scared of an RPA complaint?


Kerrie Adams

July 10th, 2010 12:57 am

I’m not the one that posted the above; but I can provide some insight.

I don’t think a landlord would be “scared” of a Complaint, but they would probably take it serious due to negative repercussions that could happen. I don’t know of one person that would want a negative record of anything. So, the threat of a negative record could motivate some landlords to work out a fair solution, but its probably not the biggest factor to most landlords. There are other complaint factors that can influence how or why a landlord may resolve rent complaints.

1) It’s official/ Formal
2) Landlord can’t bully a mediator
3) Legal Paper Trail.

As a landlord I can say that if I had a complaint filed against me, I would do everything in my power to resolve it. I would hope that my tenants wouldn’t feel forced to go to that optoin.


Sam

April 5th, 2011 10:48 am

The same thing happened to me, and I made note of everything that took place. I even had someone to go in with me to witness the issues that I was having everytime I went to speak with the landlords. They would always just say they’ll get to me. I was told that everything would be handled and given to me in a timely manner about what was owed and they wait to the last minute to give me this crazy charge. And that’s not even the bad part. Someone has already committed to renting my apartment, but they’re saying I have to pay a full month’s rent.


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