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this is just about what I was going to ask. You cannot collect rent from two parties on the same property for the same time frame. Something's messed up here. Did the girls not move in after all, and they're trying to ding you for the rent?
For legal advice, you need an attorney. At this point, if I were you, I would see an attorney and ask him to write a nice demand letter to them. Good luck.
In the future, don't do 'nuthin' without paperwork to prove it!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lacerta
Its a party!!!
Ok, seriously though, you need to look up your state law as to collecting rent from more than one party at a time for the same property. Pretty sure that is illegal pretty much everywhere. My question is, are they not charging rent to the girls yet? When you say they wanted to "move in early", it makes me wonder.
Either way, if they asked you to accomodate them by moving earlier than you wanted to, they need to pay the rent for that time frame. In my opinion as a LL, the new tenants should even reimburse you something for agreeing to their requests.
Your problem, as others have pointed out, is that they have a signed lease for you through July, and you don't have a signed release. However, if they have a signed lease from the new people, that is most likely an "implied" release for you.
Honestly, I can't believe the LL had the guts to ask you repeatedly if you wanted to move out 2 MONTHS early. "A little early" is 3 or 4 days, not 2 months! That is insane.
Your argument about not having keys anymore is not really relevant. If this had gone a different way where you just decided to break the lease 2 months early, turning in the keys doesn't remove your responsibility to pay rent. But you didn't break the lease, and that is your big point. You were asked to basically do the LL and the new tenant a FAVOR and move out early. They didn't force you to move out, but they did request it to help with scheduling. Now they need to collect from the new tenants.
At this point, if I were you, I would see an attorney and ask him to write a nice demand letter to them.
I agree. A letter from an attorney will likely cause the whole mess to magically straighten itself out, and hiring one to write a letter is relatively cheap. If you have those voicemails at least that should help if you have to go to court. I doubt any judge will make them pay when they were requested to leave early to accomodate new tenants. Next time, GET IT IN WRITING!
Take all your info, voice mail tapes, etc and go to small claims court.
BTW, people who are not lawyers should not give you legal advice. No lawyer will provide legal advice to someone on a board but may provide general information. Nothing I say can or should be construed as providing the requested legal advice.
Take it to court - the judge is more than capable of sorting out from the he-said-she-said what is FAIR.
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