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Looking for anyone knowledgeable on this sort of situation -
I am renting an apartment in New Jersey. My first year, we submitted a deposit for 1 1/2 month's rent and signed a 12 month lease. Following the 12 months, we decided to say another year but was never contacted for signing a new lease. My landlord is incredibly laid back...to a fault (has taken months to do repairs and sometimes never even takes action on certain repairs). My roommates and I continued to pay rent regardless month-to-month. However, my landlord would take months to cash checks, sometimes even to the point where our checks have been returned to us.
One of our roommates disappeared mid-year due to the idea that we were not obligated to the apartment by a lease. We are now in the works for signing a lease for our third year in this apartment but our landlord is now attempting to contact us for "missing rent" prior to this new lease (aka the entire second year we have lived here without a lease). Is she legally able to request money from us for a year that has been over with that was not contracted under a lease? We find it quite ridiculous that after 12 months, she decided to get her act together.
You paid the rent for the past year, under an unwritten month to month scheme?
And now the landlord wants to retroactively raise the rent?
Is that what you are saying?
No. if the LL wanted to raise the rent, they should have come forward with a new contract. They didn't. Too bad.
What is past is passed. If they want a new contract with new rent for the year ahead, they may make a proposal. Beware of them raising the rent "too much" to make up for what they think they "missed".
Strand firm. Don't be bullied. Especially if you have copies of the cashed checks.
The landlord does not want to raise the rent. The new lease is under the same terms/rent as our first year. She is claiming to have been missing rent for that in between year. She may have been missing a check from my roommate because we have had so many returned to our account without our knowledge due to her not cashing the checks within a 3 month period so it is easy to lose track of that. She wants to now claim money from June 1st 2014-May 2015 even though we did not have a lease for that year.
Show her proof that the rent was paid, or pay it now if you somehow "missed" a payment. Just because someone left does not excuse the rent being paid.....as in, their "share" didn't get paid because they weren't there. It doesn't work like that. Judge Judy would say so. Assume month to month. Show records that each month was paid, and checks were cashed, or pay her now for the missing months.
Yes, it was dumb of her not to cash the checks, but you lived there, right? Fair is fair...to a point.
Read again. The landlord is not looking for retro active raised rent. The landlord is looking for payment for the checks that bounced. to the OP, a person has up to 6 months to cash a check before it is stale dated. It is your fault that any checks bounced. You owe past rent so pay it. You lived there you owe it.
In NJ:
If the tenant or landlord does not renew the lease and the lease was for a term of more than one month and the tenant holds over (stays after the expiration of the lease), the tenancy will become a month-to-month tenancy, if the landlord continues to accept the rent and there is no other agreement between the landlord and the tenant. SDG v. Inventory Control, 178 N.J. Super. 411.This tenancy is still subject to all the terms and conditions of the written lease other than its duration term. Heyman v. Bishop, 15 N.J. Super. 266.
The landlord does not want to raise the rent. The new lease is under the same terms/rent as our first year. She is claiming to have been missing rent for that in between year. She may have been missing a check from my roommate because we have had so many returned to our account without our knowledge due to her not cashing the checks within a 3 month period so it is easy to lose track of that. She wants to now claim money from June 1st 2014-May 2015 even though we did not have a lease for that year.
Checks do NOT get returned to your account without your knowledge. They may never get cashed by recipient, but they are never 'returned' as you put it. The funds just never get deducted from your account if the check is too old to cash. If a check gets returned for some reason, it gets returned to YOU, not the bank and the only time I can see that happening is if you mailed a check to the wrong address and it came back undeliverable. The only way a check gets so called 'returned' to your account is if it is a NSF and you did not have funds to cover it.
So what is the real story here?
And yes, you owe the back rent or missing rent no matter what. You should have been keeping tabs on what exactly was going on, when, and by whom. You are all equally responsible for the full rent being paid monthly if all of your names were on the lease. And don't try to say you didn't have a lease because you did. It automatically converted to a MTM lease whether you signed anything or not.
If you claim the tenant who left didn't pay their portion, then you would have to pay the tenant's rent who skipped out and sue the tenant for that money.
Last edited by Corn-fused; 08-13-2015 at 02:44 PM..
Checks do NOT get returned to your account without your knowledge. They may never get cashed by recipient, but they are never 'returned' as you put it. The funds just never get deducted from your account if the check is too old to cash. If a check gets returned for some reason, it gets returned to YOU, not the bank and the only time I can see that happening is if you mailed a check to the wrong address and it came back undeliverable. The only way a check gets so called 'returned' to your account is if it is a NSF and you did not have funds to cover it.
So what is the real story here?
And yes, you owe the back rent or missing rent no matter what. You should have been keeping tabs on what exactly was going on, when, and by whom. You are all equally responsible for the full rent being paid monthly if all of your names were on the lease. And don't try to say you didn't have a lease because you did. It automatically converted to a MTM lease whether you signed anything or not.
If you claim the tenant who left didn't pay, they you would have to pay the tenant's rent who skipped out and sue the tenant for that money.
Agree with this.
OP, your story about uncashed/returned checks has huge holes in it (I don't believe it and I'm not a landlord) but regardless, you owe the landlord for the unpaid rent whether you renew your lease or not. She can evict you and sue you for it if you don't pay it so long as the statute of limitations has not expired (which it hasn't based on your timeline). Good luck finding a decent place to live if you let that happen. If you can't pay what you owe her you may want to try to work out a payment arrangement before this situation gets much worse.
The landlord does not want to raise the rent. The new lease is under the same terms/rent as our first year. She is claiming to have been missing rent for that in between year. She may have been missing a check from my roommate because we have had so many returned to our account without our knowledge due to her not cashing the checks within a 3 month period so it is easy to lose track of that. She wants to now claim money from June 1st 2014-May 2015 even though we did not have a lease for that year.
It doesn't matter if you had a signed lease for the second year, after a year it went to month to month and you owe for every month. If you or a roommate lived there and paid rent and it was sent back to you, which doesn't make sense, you still owe it, pay it.
You actually were legally still under a lease during that 2nd year. Your 1st annual lease simply turned into a month-to-month lease, with same people and same terms except the end date became month-to-month. Month-to-month means each party(landlord or tenants) could cancel the lease if they give proper notice per the lease (or per state law). Proper notice might be 30 day notice (to end lease aka move out) or it might have been 60 day notice.
Regardless, you still were in a valid lease. It just wasn't for a fixed 1 year period any longer.
Legally you are still renters and can be evicted for any unpaid rent. Even if 1 of the roommates didn't pay their portion, the entire monthly rent was due to the landlord. Else eviction of ALL parties on the lease could occur. The landlord wouldn't evict 1 person or go after 1 person for the rent. Instead, the landlord would go after all tenants.
You don't want an eviction on your record, even if it's the fault of another roommate for not paying rent.
I agree with the above. It sounds like you didn't pay for the full year. Even if it was your landlord's fault for losing a check here or there, you are still on the hook for 12 months rent. Check your bank statements; if it turns out that 10 of 12 checks were cashed, then you owe 2 months rent. 8 of 12, you owe 4, etc. Just be reasonable about it- you lived there, so you owe it.
Once you have your facts straight, it is possible to argue that you tried to pay and perhaps get out of paying it in court, but don't expect to get a lease renewal for year 3 in any event.
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