Lease Extension Denied
My lease is up at the end of the month (jan 31). rent stabilized, been there for years. I’m moving on Feb 28 so I requested a month extension from the management company (one of the big, huge, evil ones…) and just found out it was denied. So what are my options? I can renew…
My lease is up at the end of the month (jan 31). rent stabilized, been there for years. I’m moving on Feb 28 so I requested a month extension from the management company (one of the big, huge, evil ones…) and just found out it was denied.
So what are my options? I can renew the lease for another year and sublet for 11 months (after I move out)… or some people are telling me I can just stay there?
What do you folks think is my best course of action? I’m happy to pay rent for the month of Feb–as I definitely need to stay there.
From what I understand, eviction proceedings take a long time, but will there be any ramifications if I just stay there and send in my normal rent check?
Any help will be GREATLY appreciated!
Thank you!
no you can’t be sued for the balance of a term of a lease you didn’t sign or otherwise indicate that you were renewing(in writing I might add)
You must must must must must must must send your letter certified mail, return receipt. Otherwise the landlord could theoretically sue you for the balance of a new lease term. It happened to a friend and she got screwed. Document everything, otherwise you should be just fine.
Most RS LL’s I know will not give anyone an extension because they are afraid by cashing your (Feb) rent check, they will be acknowledging that they’re not taking their god – entitled rent increase. Did you know that you were moving in Feb when you got your lease renewal? You would’ve been better off, getting someone on the phone, finding out what their lease breaking/subletting policy is, based on what the say, sign a new lease, and go from there.
Subletting a RS is not as straight-forward as you think, many LL’s can make approval difficult and if they choose can refuse to allow you to sublet the remainder of a lease (something they can do legally – I found that out the hard way a couple of months ago)
If you don’t pay your rent, they cannot evict you in a month but they can put it on your record, and the last thing you need is a court case popping up when you try to rent another apt.
Call them up or go down to their office, ask to speak to a manager, tell them that you are willing to sign a new lease if that’s what they want, provided that they’re willing to put it in writing to let you out in a month, make sure you sort out the return of your security etc, tell them you’re willing leverage a portion of it if you have to. Good Luck.
1) Absolutely no way they are going to get you out of there legally before a month is up.
2) If they cash your rent check, they can’t evict you, even if the lease is up. If they don’t, great.
3) What you are doing is technically illegal (assuming you stay). But it’s such a drop in the bucket compared to the other things going on with landlord-tenants, I wouldn’t worry.
4) One thing to worry about – since they know what’s up (you are leaving), they may decide to go shady on you and cut services or harass. You know better than I do what your landlord is like. But since your approach broaches legality and relies on leaving soon, they may decide to broach legality as well (the assumption being that since you are leaving, you won’t have time to get the requisite protection).
Mostly, you are safe. In NYC’s landlord-tenant climate, I think a vast majority of landlords are happy to eat a month to get rid of an RS tenant.
actually you have to be served with a three day holdover notice before they start a court case.
if they start a case in housing court they will have problems in small claims court.
If you are willing to pay the one month just stay there. When they serve you with the hold over call their lawyer.
Take him to court and don’t get too stressed about it. You don’t have to worry about hiring a lawyer, the judge should be able understand your plee without using a mouthpiece. Owners don’t own their places either if the government is giving them our tax money to finance their mortgages!
“No one is going to bother with taking you to court and spending the kind of dough they’d need to spend to ‘punish’ you for paying them for one additional month…”
Or you could be served with an eviction notice on the first day you are a holdover. Be very careful with some of this free advice, or at least caveat emptor. The likelihood that an experienced owner is going to fall into the trap of cashing that check, thereby turning you into a de-facto month to month tenant is next to 0. You will be a holdover, subject to triple the amount of your current base rent for any holdover period, as well as the landlord’s legal fees if there is a judgment and your own.
Assuming you do move out before the case gets to housing court, the owner will have a legitimate claim against you in small claims court.
Under rent stabilization, a landlord must offer you either a one or a two year renewal, and has no obligation to offer you a portion of that. The lease term is clear in that it has a date certain when it ends, and it is NOT your home after that lease terminates.
You are of course free to renegotiate that if you can, and offering more to stay in the apartment peaceably is not a bad approach. There is no moral or ethical leaning toward the tenant here, and whether the landlord or the tenant are nice people is irrelevant. If you want something you either have to 1) offer what will cause the other party to give it to you, 2) accept what you agreed to in first place and make your own arrangements or 3) fight dirty. But don’t rationalize the populist notion of holding over in a place you don’t own; if this finds its way into court you will be fighting a losing battle….
Like Bowl o’ Dicks said… Send them the rent for February. And clearly write in the note “Rent for February 2010”
If they cash it, you’re golden. If not… well, you’ll come back on Feb 3rd with a nasty letter in your mailbox.
the only problem I see from the LL’s pov, is that what happens when one month turns into two months and so on.