Landord in violation of lease

I live in Texas and I am moving out of my apartment after my second 1 year lease.

We are required to give 60 days notice if we are moving by contract, but in the "moving out" clause of our lease it also reads "if we require you to give more than 30 days notice, we will give you a written reminder at least 5 days and no more than 90 days before it is due". My apartment manager called me on May 12th (which was 12 days after the notice was due) to inform me that she had left me letters and tried to contact me but I had not answered the phone or come in. I recieved only that one phone call, and the only notice I recived was about coming to a "party" to renew for a discounted rate... I have not recieved any reminder about signing a move out notice and she is refusing to budge. We now have to pay an extra $410 and stay in our lease 12 days longer. I think I have a right to fight this because she also violated the lease.

Today my husband went to the office again and she showed him a letter, which she has no proof of date of when it was sent or printed that detailed renewal prices. I did NOT recieve this letter, but even still the letter does not mention signing a move out notice at all!

She seems to think that letters about renewl are sufficient reminder about signing a move out notice. I am afraid that I will have to go to small claims court (I will be paying the $410 because I don't want my credit score to be affects, it is very good). Is this something I can fight?

[OHlandlord]

I doubt you could win this in court. She did notify you of the renewal, which you choose not to do. You knew that your lease required 60 days written notice if you chose not to renew, and to vacate instead. You must give this amount of notice. The fact that she did remind you of the choice to renew or not was her responsibility, which she apparently did. The responsibility to notify her with the appropriate amount of notice that you would not be staying was your responsibility. You knew, or should have known, when your lease was ending. As such, it was your responsibility to notify her if you were not going to renew. Sorry.

The only thing about it is our lease explicitly states, and I am quoting it (copied from the document)...

"If we require you to give us more than 30 days written notice to
move-out before the end of the lease term, we will give you a
written reminder not less than 5 days nor more than 90 days
before your deadline for giving us your WRITTEN MOVE OUT NOTICE."

How is a move out notice the same as a renewal? If we had known about the 60 days there is no doubt we would have complied, and if they had followed that part of the lease, there would never have been a problem.

This just feels to me like they wanted to make a little more profit.

And I have to add that the two letters she provided as proof of reminder mentioned nothing about what to do if we were not staying, only renewal prices and that our lease was ending soon, which we did know the date our lease ended. There was never anything on any document we recieved or they claimed to have left for us that said anything remotely about signing a separate document called a "move out notice". Which is a separate legal document that the TAA (Texas Apartment Association) had drawn up for most Texas apartments. TAA is also where our lease comes from.

Also, from my reading of the lease, they are NOT obligated to notify us of renewal, only of move out. What I surmise of this is that us renewing is more profitable that us leaving, so they would only remind us of the fact we needed to renew.

[OHlandlord]

That clause only states that they will give you a reminder prior to the lease ending, so you may make the choice to move out or to renew. They did this. They didn't give you a move out notice because they didn't ask you to leave. That was your choice. They needn't have even reminded you that your lease was ending. You could have continued on a month to month basis after it ended. So they did all that was required of them.

You said:
"If we had known about the 60 days there is no doubt we would have complied" and that it "mentioned nothing about what to do if we were not staying, only renewal prices and that our lease was ending soon, which we did know the date our lease ended. There was never anything on any document we received or they claimed to have left for us that said anything remotely about signing a separate document called a "move out notice". " The original copy you received of your lease had the ending date on it and stated that you needed to give this amount of notice. A move out notice is standard in every state of the US. It doesn't even have to be on a special form. It just means you have to give the Landlord notice, in writing, that you are moving out. Since you have lived there for 2 years and signed 2 leases, you have been notified per the lease documents of these requirements and the ending dates. No other reminder is required by law. You are required to know your responsibilities by your state law. You will have to pay for the 60 days of notice as required in the legal document you signed. Sorry, but their failure to send the reminder in time will not relieve you of your responsibilities.

thanks

I am a recent college graduate. Myself and two roommates occupied a three bedroom house for 9 months. Our lease was from Sept. 07 - May 08. The monthly rent was $500 and there was a necessary $750 security deposit put down for each of us, so $2250 in total. Recently we called to get our security deposit back but the landlord has refused. He even has threatened to take us to court over this matter.

The landlord is falsely claiming that:

1. the house was dirty.
2. there was bulk trash left at the curb that the township could fine for
3. there were window air condition units left in the house

as for these claims they are not as they seem. For one, the house was not dirty at all. In fact, it was cleaner when we moved out than it was when we moved in. We had the rugs professionally cleaned. The cleaning service even stated that some of the rugs hadn't been cleaned in 10-15 years. Along with that, myself along with 3 eyewitnesses were there to help me clean. The first was my mother, the second was my grandfather, and the third was a friend who has was also a former cleaning lady. All four of us cleaned the house for 2-3 hours. They are willing to testify that the house was in perfect condition.

Secondly, the bulk trash. The trash was a couch and love seat that was worn down, along with a desk and a few other odds and ends. The township explains that bulk trash pick up is done on Wednesday's. We put the stuff to the curb on May 28th, which was the last Wed. in May. However, the township never picked it up so we called them. They stated that they do not do pickups on the Wed. after a holiday (Memorial Day). Therefore, when we moved out on Sat. the 31st the trash was still at the curb as we believed they would come by the following Wed. (June 4th) to collect the trash. In my opinion the landlords problem is with the township and not us tenants.

Lastly, there were several window air conditioners left in the house but we only had them for one reason. The landlord refused to have the air/heat fixed. While we called numerous times, the landlord did send people out to look at both the air/heat, however it was never fixed to proper working conditions. The air would blow out room temp. air and the heat would only work on full blast causing the house to raise to 95 degrees. Therefore, we purchased air conditioners to help cool the house down. I don't understand how this warrants any kind of financial holdings from us.

Please help with any advice. I am more than willing to go to court with this landlord in order to get my $750 back. I feel like he has no case. Has anyone come across any similar problems??

Any information about the law in New Jersey would help greatly. Thanks in advance.

sorry about above post....wrong thread