Non-Renewal of Lease

[gelenberg]

Our landlord gave us a 60 days notice of non-renewal of our lease on July 31st. Our lease expires on September 1st. She specified in the non-renewal letter that we can stay in the apartment until Sept 31st. We had already sent our August rent to her at this point. Last weekend, we found a new apartment and agreed to sign a lease that begins on Sept 1st. Yesterday, (8/16) I sent a registered, certified letter notifying our landlord that we will be moving out by end of day on 9/4. I believe that she should then return our last month's rent minus 4 days to us. Is that correct? (This is in Massachusetts.)

 

[cmroze]

Non renewal

Hi

It depends on:
1/ Your lease agreement e.g. if you are on a month to month tenancy you should be able to give them 30 days notice
2/ Do you have any section on early lease termination?

Overall I think it will be up to you to negotiate with the landlord (nicely) and try to see if he/you can find another tenant to take over the lease and relet the premises. If he cannot rerent you are probably responsible.

Good luck,

Catherine

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Our landlord gave us a 60 days notice of non-renewal of our lease on July 31st. Our lease expires on September 1st. She specified in the non-renewal letter that we can stay in the apartment until Sept 31st. We had already sent our August rent to her at this point. Last weekend, we found a new apartment and agreed to sign a lease that begins on Sept 1st. Yesterday, (8/16) I sent a registered, certified letter notifying our landlord that we will be moving out by end of day on 9/4. I believe that she should then return our last month's rent minus 4 days to us. Is that correct? (This is in Massachusetts.)

No -- this is not correct. You can't just decide to move out and pro-rate your rent as you want. Who is going to pay for the other 26 days? Why should the landlord have to try to find someone to stay there for that period? Does it sound reasonable?

Here is what I think - and it's long after the fact. Sorry I didn't see this before but I'll reply to the reply. You have/had a choice to make. You can either (1) negotiate with the landlord to pay only 4 days rent although I don't think he/she will go for it; (2) Stay until the end of the month and pay for that small cost; or (3) Leave a few days early and keep your stuff in storage.

The reason for the above is that your lease ends 8/31. You were given an option to extend it for 30 days. Those are your current options. There is no option to prorate on your moving date unless the landlord says he/she will be willing to sustain a loss or has a tenant willing to move in on that date. Let us know what happened!