RENT IT RIGHT
Question: I’ve been renting my house for about two years. At first I had a year’s lease, and when that was up I stayed on as a month-to-month tenant. Two days before the end of the month, the landlord came over with a yearlong lease at a higher rent, set to begin on the first of the next month, and asked me to sign. I did, and I paid the higher rent a couple of days later, but now I want to get out of the lease. Because he didn’t give me adequate notice, do I have the right to get any rent back or to break the lease?
Answer: When your landlord came to visit, what he was really doing was terminating your month-to-month tenancy and asking you to sign a lease for a new tenancy. In most states, tenants are entitled to 30 days’ notice when landlords terminate a monthly tenancy. Had your landlord done things right, he would have given you a termination notice, effective in 30 days (or whatever the notice period is in your state) and also handed you a lease, to begin in 31 days, at the new rent.
You would have been on solid ground if you had objected at that point and attempted to convince your landlord that his new rent was premature. If the landlord refused to go along you could have legally stayed for 30 days, but you would have had to move after that. But you didn’t raise the issue, and by signing the lease you effectively agreed that your monthly tenancy would end in a few days.
Does the landlord’s shortcut entitle you to break the lease and leave without legal consequences? That’s doubtful. Some landlord mistakes -- such as renting to a minor -- are so serious as to render the lease void when brought to a judge’s attention. But this maneuver, though illegal at the time, has a remedy that should have been asserted then.
-- Janet Portman, Inman News
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