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I signed into a 1 year lease in August.
The lease is an Auto-Renewal Lease, which I had not realized somehow until today.
The lease states that the lease will automatically renew month-to-month unless either party gives 60 days written notice of termination or intent to move-out as required by the following paragraph:
Before moving out, you must give our representative advance written move-out notice as provided below. ...Some irrelevant filling...
YOUR MOVE-OUT NOTICE MUST COMPLY WITH EACH OF THE FOLLOWING:
-We must receive advance written notice of your move-out date. The advance notice must be at least the number of days of notice required in (the earlier paragraph, which i paraphrased above). Oral move-out notice will not be accepted and will not terminate your lease contract.
-Your move-out notice must not terminate the lease contract sooner than the end of the lease contract term or renewal period.
Your notice is not acceptable if it does not comply with all of the above.
(My bolding, for emphasis ->) Please use our written move-out form. You must obtain from our representative written acknowledgement that we received your move-out notice.
So now that you know the lease terms (which I read when I signed, but did not remember this particular later on...
I began the process of buying my first home.
I sent the following email to the office on April 30th with my intentions:
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Hey Landmark Team,
I am excited to share that Samantha and I will be first time home buyers soon.
Our current lease is expiring August 10th, but I wanted to know if the office would be willing to work with us on perhaps reducing our lease term by 1 or 1 1/2 months without having to "break" the lease.
Given advance notice, you could list the apartment as being available as early as June 15th.
Given our circumstance, we will be moving into our new home about 2 months prior to our lease expiring. Consequently, the lease contract states that breaking the lease would cost 2 months of rent.
Please let me know if, given the advance notice and understanding that we are purchasing our first home, there is any negotiation available to help us out.
Thank you in advance,
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They responded:
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Hello,
Congratulations on your home purchase.
I wish we were able to do something regarding the cost of breakage of the lease, but unfortunately, we are unable to. If you and Samantha can stop by the leasing office tomorrow , we can put in your official notice and talk about the Early Termination Fee.
Sorry,
---------------------------------------
I then proceeded to try convincing them to shorten the term, but they would not.
I did not know until they pointed it out to me today, that in the email reply when they said "put in your official notice", I did not take that to mean notice that we'd be not renewing the lease, as I stated before I forgot that it was an auto-renewal.
I have now been living in my new home for over 2 months now, and they said that they left reminders on my door at the apartment about the renewal which I do not recall ever receiving...
Now they are forcing me to pay $769 for Liquidation Damage, and I don't know if this means that their written move-out form is the only legal way to remove myself from the lease, or is my email to them which they acknowledged enough to continue to fight back?
I should add that, I did not wind up going to the office to pursue the early termination fee because the cost would have been about the same anyway, so I just wound up paying rent for the next two months while not living there.
Sounds like you need to talk to a lawyer. They said in their response that you need to put in your official notice. Also, your original email doesn't once state that your final day will be on a specific date so that isn't notice at all. They seem to be in the right here from what I can see.
The lease states that the lease will automatically renew month-to-month unless...
Misnomer. That's roll over into M2M not "renew".
This is a good thing.
Quote:
...either party gives 60 days written notice of termination ...
iow... if/when you decide to leave on short notice your obligation is limited to 2 months.
---
Quote:
I sent the following email to the office on April 30th with my intentions:
Our current lease is expiring August 10th, but I wanted to know if the office would be willing to
work with us on perhaps reducing our lease term... about 2 months prior to our lease expiring.
I did not know until they pointed it out to me today, that in the email reply when they said
"put in your official notice"... Now they are forcing me to pay $769 for Liquidation Damage
Any help appreciated.
They're being petty about it (as most PM companies seem to go out of their way to be)...
but how many months of rent does the $769 represent?
Last edited by MrRational; 08-01-2017 at 03:55 PM..
Also, your original email doesn't once state that your final day will be on a specific date so that isn't notice at all.
I mean, you're right. It's just very strongly implied by the fact that I say explicitly that the term will end on August 10th. And that I will not be living there any longer due to purchasing a home.
But I do not explicitly say "I would like to not renew my lease or rollover month-to-month".
That said, this is the perspective and insight I was hoping to receive, so thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrRational
how many months of rent does the $769 represent?
That is thankfully just 1 month of rent. The thing is, that's a lot of money when you suddenly have a mortgage and you're already shelling out $800 for each thing that is broken at the house haha.
Unfortunately this office has seemed to go out of their way to be uncooperative during the entirety of my residency. The responses I get are always very corporate and robotic.
Not that this really helps any, but I emailed them again last month, as I checked and they charged me a water bill of over $50 for the month. I asked how is this possible as I have not even lived at the apartment the entire month. They responded telling me that everyone just pays based on how much water the property used so it does not matter to the individual usage. Their reply directly tended to my bill inquiry, but they seemed to ignore the fact that I stated not being there for some time.
Oh well.
Thing is, I doubt it would even be worth fighting even if I had a chance due to legal costs.
I mean, you're right. It's just very strongly implied by the fact that I say explicitly that the term will end on August 10th. And that I will not be living there any longer due to purchasing a home.
But I do not explicitly say "I would like to not renew my lease or rollover month-to-month".
That said, this is the perspective and insight I was hoping to receive, so thank you.
That is thankfully just 1 month of rent. The thing is, that's a lot of money when you suddenly have a mortgage and you're already shelling out $800 for each thing that is broken at the house haha.
Unfortunately this office has seemed to go out of their way to be uncooperative during the entirety of my residency. The responses I get are always very corporate and robotic.
Not that this really helps any, but I emailed them again last month, as I checked and they charged me a water bill of over $50 for the month. I asked how is this possible as I have not even lived at the apartment the entire month. They responded telling me that everyone just pays based on how much water the property used so it does not matter to the individual usage. Their reply directly tended to my bill inquiry, but they seemed to ignore the fact that I stated not being there for some time.
Oh well.
Thing is, I doubt it would even be worth fighting even if I had a chance due to legal costs.
And you don't have a chance. I know it's not what you want to hear, but you owe them money.
I have rented many times before, but have never been in an auto-renewal or rollover lease before. Unfortunately this "lesson learned" will likely never come in handy as I will not be renting again--hopefully.
I have rented many times before, but have never been in an auto-renewal or rollover lease before.
That really is not the issue here.
Rollover to M2M and/or renew USED TO BE the default expectation of most resi leases.
Most LL's still want to encourage good tenants to stay put and most don't make that complicated.
Beware of the PM Co's.
Quote:
Unfortunately this "lesson learned" will likely never come in handy ...
It should. The lesson is to read the fine print and practice a CYA approach.
Hope you enjoy your new home.
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