We recently bought a house and broke our Ohio Apt. lease. What are my rights? I am a firm believer in rules and laws and therefore realize that in most cases, when I sign a contract, I am bound to it. In this case, my wife and I moved into an apartment community knowing that we are looking for a house and sent to the property manager. We had been in the apartment for six months, then found a home. The asset manager (communal apartments) makes us give 60 days notice and returning from the rate of one year of promotion, they gave us to move in time to full market price for these 60 days. In addition, we have to pay rental fees out of 1.5x our monthly rent (market rate) and pay the promotional discount we received during our six months of hire.
Here are my questions that I am not clear about.
1. While I realize that it is our responsibility to read the lease, when your given a page 20, a lease agreement small print with tons of legalese and their position until you you sign, it is difficult to read everything on time and to understand. So they offered to walk through it and explain each section. As they did they failed to explain that they had two separate policies lease break. A contract was in effect for the first year of residency to apply the second place of residence beyond one year. During the first year they hit you harder if you break the lease. They failed to say that and never stated (until we gave an opinion) that the rental policy break was different from the first year. In their explanation of the rental policies to break our lease is signed, they described the policy of residence after the first year, without specifying it. However, this is verbal discussion and the contract does not specify clearly. My problem with it is that we have been misled on this point - most likely on the end.
2. I have lived in 8 apartments in five states and have never even heard of 60 days notice where the termination of the lease. It has always been 30 days. 60 days notice is legal? How can they require 60 days notice and be actively seeking to re-rent an apartment? They just make me pay more instead of trying to re-rent the apartment. I know that in our 60 days, they rented many apartments on the property. Do I have any rights here?
3. I'm assuming it is, but may be entitled to require that I pay back 6 months after delivery one year of promotion they gave us when we moved in?
4. Our promotion rate was essentially $ 100 off per month for one year. However we were paying $ 100 more each month than the same apartment elsewhere on the property because of its unique location - it overlooked a small lake and two fountains. Since we have lived here two fountains were not working well and the last two months that we worked. We have put in dozens of interview requests for fixed, but they have not yet been set. If we want to pay extra for this unique perspective and fountains are not working, do we have rights there?
When I look at this objectively I see that the building manager application is not too much on the wall. But I had a lawyer and two real estate agents and countless friends tell me to look into this because it does not seem right at least in the case of political one-year lease break first, we have been misled.
Any thoughts or advice would be great.
I would just walk, you lose deposit, and let them chase you. By law, they must make a good faith effort to rerent your apartment, and if they do, you're not responsible for anything. If this occurs before the time you paid (through deposits and forfeiture, etc) They should tell you the difference
It is your responsibility to read and understand anything you sign.
Pay.
You have no rights. You broke the lease.
Posted on June 16, 2010.