late move-out notice : ezLandlordForms

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late move-out notice

Matyas S

started a topic about 9 years ago

The month-to-month (TX) lease contract states regarding the termination notice that it is effective: "on the last day of the month following the month in which the notice is given". This means that a notice given on July 1-31 triggers a termination date of August 31. The tenants sent an email on August 1 indicating their desire to terminate their lease on August 31. (They were probably under the impression that they gave a proper 30 days notice.) This notice was incorrect for other reasons as well. we asked the tenants to submit a termination notice 1. in writing 2. that is signed by both (husband and wife) tenants and 3. that their new address is also indicated in the notice. We received the signed notice on August 5th. We did not want to make life hard for the tenants by enforcing a termination date of September 30 per the contract. After all, they were only a couple days late. However: do we have basis to withhold 5 days (prorated) rent from the security deposit? The late notice reduced our marketing time by 5 days. Could we interpret their notice as effective September 30 (per the strict reading of the contract), but only charge them until September 5 as a courtesy. (In reality we are renting the place for new tenants from September 17. So someone may charge until September 16. But we really do not want to ask for that, only for the 5 days we lost.)

1 Comment

Matyas S

said about 9 years ago

The above was my first post. This comment form reformatted my message by removing paragraph separations. Sorry for the difficult readability as a result.