Resolving lease term discrepancy (sales, apartment, rental market)

[dixiecupdrinking]

Hi all -- a quick question regarding a lease issue.

I signed a lease on a new apartment a couple of months ago with a couple of roommates. The landlord wanted to extend the lease term into the summer of 2010 so we signed a lease for a year and a few months. The lease specifies that it's for a term of 16 months; however, the dates that he wrote on the lease actually would mean the lease was for 17 months. (Basically, 16 months would be up at the end of May but the lease we signed says it's through the end of June.) Apparently, we all just overlooked this.

Legally speaking, what does this mean? Is the lease itself altogether invalid due to a mistake like this? Or is it still legally binding, with the caveat that we could arguably end the agreement in May or June?

I'm thinking that, since the landlord drew up the lease, we as the tenants might be able to interpret this discrepancy however it benefits us; i.e., if we want out earlier, we can say, well, the lease says it lasts 16 months, but if we wanted to stay, we could say, well, the lease says it ends on June 31. Is this accurate?

The landlord seems like a reasonable guy and runs a pretty informal business, so I don't anticipate this turning into an issue, but I'm just wondering where I stand before approaching him about it. In this rental market, I'm also thinking that I could find a better deal out there this summer, so if it were possible to break the lease on this basis, that might actually be appealing.

[mathjak107]

if you both agree on the correct date just have it changed.. typos on contracts usually arent an issue as long as you both agree.....

the correct terms are the terms that had you say okay lets do it.. the date on the contract merely confirms what was already agreed to..

its like if a store rings in 100.00 bucks in error for an item thats supposed to be 1,000.00 bucks because of a sloppy written sales receipt.

if they caught up with you , the balance would be do the store.. the deal was the price that you agreed to that made you do the deal... the sales slip is written after you already agreed to a deal so a typo has no effect on the deal that you made. you cant profit from someones typo error unless they gave you a wriiten quote in advance and that had the error because it would be that price that sparked the deal to happen...

[dixiecupdrinking]

Right. The only way I anticipate it being a problem is that I would like to end the lease on the early end of the time range, while I think the landlord would like us to stay through the longer range. I think that the issue is, each party was genuinely agreeing to different terms in their minds. So I wonder, should push come to shove, which of us ultimately gets to assert our preferred terms.

[mathjak107]

Impossible to say if there are 2 dates that are written and you guys dont agree.......