Surprise question about lease renewal in NYC

March 1, 2008 9:09 AM

Ay! Help! Does a lease automatically renew if you can't prove you mailed the non-renewal? My landlord is now acting like they didn't recieve my non-renewal. I have already moved out (today) and it would make NO sense for me to move back in for the month. Is there anything I can do to avoid owing the rent for the month?

This is a rent-stabilized building in upper Manhattan (if its being rent-stabilized makes a difference). Given this apt and its price we can assume they'll find a tenant very quickly.

I started this lease on the 1st of March 2007. In December 2007 they mailed me the packet where you pick one, the lease renewal or the lease non-renewal, and you return it signed. I returned the non-renewal, mailed so they would definitely get it with the 30 days' notice they specified in the packet's cover letter. I did not mail it Certified, clearly a mistake. Just regular mail, which I've never had any problem with for my rent checks.

I have called the management office (one office that owns & runs many buildings) several times this month, especially when I got curious why nobody was bringing any potential tenants to visit. You leave a message and they get back to you. Once the lady did call me back two days ago, finally, but I wasn't here, so she left a message. I returned it so she's been It since then.

This morning I went to see my super to schedule today's meeting to do our walkthrough of my place and give him the keys. He was surprised, which didn't concern me too much, but now I have just found the usual rent envelope under my door which they leave every month on the 1st. It lists the rent due for March, just as if my lease were still going.

I really need my deposit back and I put a lot of effort into making my place clean and perfect. Is there anything at all I can do? What I'm doing today is my usual last-day stuff, final cleaning plus taking pictures of the condition of everything (with today's newspaper in the picture). I will be giving the keys to the super at 3pm, so I have three hours if you have any "do this while you're still there" advice!! Then after 3pm the question becomes just what can I do to get my deposit back!?

posted by sparrows to law & government (10 comments total)

I forgot to specify: amount of deposit is same as one month's rent. I actually have the lease at hand here, if you have any question about it.
posted by sparrows at 9:14 AM on March 1, 2008

1: Does it say in the lease that it will renew automatically?

If it does, they may be trying to pull a fast one or it may be a screw up clerically. It sounds like they either needed a signed continuation, or a signed non-renewal, so I'm not sure how they can just carry on as if nothing happened. I imagine the ball was dropped by the management company, but you need to check that it doesn't renew automagically in your lease.

My position would be that, without a signed lease renewal, they should have contacted you as once the initial lease is over, you have no further agreement with them. Be polite, but be confident and firm in your position. Call them today repeatedly. Ask for a higher positioned contact from the Super. Get him on side about this, and adopt the position of wanting to get this organised for everyone's convenience.

When you called and left messages, did you give any indication of why? Did you say "I'm calling to see why you haven't confirmed my lease non-renewal" or just "Call em back please?".

If you have referred to it verbally (and can confirm the dates and times of teh calls, ideally) then you have strong grounds for getting hold of someone in authority (above whom you normally deal with) and saying "I'm sorry, but I cancelled my lease, and it appears to have been missed by the management company. As far as I am concerned I have fulfilled my obligations to you, but the system appears to have failed your end".

Get hold of someone today. Make sure they know you are not skipping and, like i say, get the Super on side.
posted by Brockles at 9:27 AM on March 1, 2008

This can go down several ways:

1. Somebody dropped the ball somewhere. They have your non-renewal sitting in a in-box, perhaps unopened. There is a disconnect between the super and the management firm.

2. It turns into a you-say-they-say battle. It'll be hard for you to leverage yourself against them in this matter, but you can point out the condition you left the apartment, the casual way you were to drop off the keys with the super, the fact that you had been calling (and leaving messages I hope) throughout the month, etc, as being indicative that you had in good faith sent in the non-renewal form. You could say something like, "Look, if I was going to skip out, why would I go to all this trouble?"

Option one is clearly the better choice here. I would be very insistent that they must have the non-renewal letter. Use language like, "I know you got the letter," (even though you don't), instead of, "Didn't you get the letter?" Further, the fact that they seem to be unable to return your phone calls is indicative of some level of incompetence on their part. If they can't return your phone calls in a timely manner, then they may have problems misplacing mail.

A few other thoughts: nail down exactly when you mailed it, and be very firm when you talk to them. Say, "I mailed it on Tuesday, the Whenever," instead of, "I think I mailed it sometime last month..."

Basically you've got to psyche them out.

Also, I don't see this getting resolved quickly. They will drag their feet regarding your deposit.

Someone else will be along to cite NYC tenet law, so buck up on that.

As is the case whenever dealing with landlords, document, document, document. That means keeping a time line of every single phone call, and the names of who you spoke with, etc. This is handy when you get bumped up to that mid-management person and you can just chew their ear off by pointing out all the times you've tried to contact them, etc.

Good luck.
posted by wfrgms at 9:33 AM on March 1, 2008

My lease does not say that it auto renews, and it says its term is one year beginning the 1st of March 2007. (Actually it doesn't explicitly say anything about the length of notice required for termination. But that cover letter, I know, said 30 days.)

I did leave them a message today when I found the envelope, speaking in "firm but polite" mode (which took an effort because in real life I was in "panicked" mode :)) Luckily I did say in today's message, "You've had my form about this since January" (I should have said "my non-renewal form" but at least I took the yes-you-have-it approach.)

There's no human in the office today so I don't think I should call again until Monday morning. I only explicitly mentioned moving out in my most recently left message, which I think I left last Tuesday (?).
posted by sparrows at 9:42 AM on March 1, 2008

Slightly off topic...Is it a good apartment? Whats the rent? Maybe I'll take it! (I'm looking to move into Manhattan soon. Maybe we could split the difference on the month. email's in my profile.)
posted by pithy comment at 10:04 AM on March 1, 2008

Take pictures of everything. Everywhere. If you don't have a digital camera, go get a disposable one (or two). Actually, disposable might be better than digital so they can't argue you edited anything.

Also make sure anything related to this problem is all in one box, clearly labeled so it doesn't get lost in the move.
posted by silkygreenbelly at 10:32 AM on March 1, 2008

There was a technicality in the lease I used in California for the first year lease terms. It was a one year lease and went to month to month after that unless the tenant gave their 30 day notice. The wording on that lease allowed a tenant to move out by the end of the original lease term for that first year without the 30 day notice (because the original lease was one year and the contract was fulfilled). However, that was California, you are in a different state and the lease wording is probably different. Read your lease carefully. You might be required to give them written notice in addition to returning their form. I also wonder if your lease dates are March 1- Feb 29th, not March 1st. I would go ahead and have the walk through with the super and get a copy of his sign off on the unit. It sounds like they did not properly process your paperwork but you also didn't give them written notice that you were vacating (the additional 30 day notice), so you will have to rely on being firmly polite and repeating what you have already said and absolutely expecting your deposit back. Good luck.
posted by 45moore45 at 10:42 AM on March 1, 2008

Oddly enough, I took a test Thursday in my business law class, with the Mailbox Rule being one of the topics.

Of course, I don't know if this applies to your case (partially because canceling a lease and accepting an offer are totally separate things, but also because it depends entirely on whether your lease specifies how you must cancel--if they say your cancellation must be received by a certain time, it doesn't matter that it was mailed / lost in the mail.)

I just thought you might find this link interesting.... Just remember that I'm not a lawyer, or even in law school, so you'd be a lunatic to construe this is anything but a link to a legal concept that may or may not be relevant.
posted by fogster at 12:38 PM on March 1, 2008

I was in a similar situation in New York state (I'm in NYC now, but at the time this was outside the city - but if anything, the laws in NYC favor tenants more). I ended up suing in small claims and winning because there was no auto-renewal clause in the lease and we left when it said the contract ended. It's a longer story, but similar in the sense that we were sticking to our original one-year lease with no renewal clause, but the LL was under the (misguided) impression that we were staying (they sold the building and never told us who the new LL was so we assumed they wanted us out at the end of the contract which was fine with us so we never said otherwise).

Here are some of the excerpts of applicable laws from correspondence to my ex-LL, if it helps at all. You could re-purpose it in a sternly worded letter mailed certified if you thought it might help your plight (after triple checking they can't get you in your lease somehow).

"Except for rent-regulated apartments, a tenant may only renew the lease with the consent of the landlord. A lease may contain an automatic renewal clause. In such case, the landlord must give the tenant advance notice of the existence of this clause between 15 and 30 days before the tenant is required to notify the landlord of an intention not to renew the lease." [General Obligations Law § 5-905]

"Tenancy for Years: This tenancy continues for a fixed period of time and has certain beginning and termination dates. Since the parties know when the tenancy will end, the term expires at the end of the period without notice required by either party."

Now, I know it says "Except for rent-regulated apartments" and I did only a quick glance to see what the exception was - I didn't find it yet but I think it's just that rent-regulated apartments can be renewed without the consent of the LL. There are some good links:

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/realestate/guide_intro.html
http://www.tenant.net
http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/faq/renewalvacancy.html#right

Those both have specific info about rent-regulated (which I don't know that much about and they have some different rules).

That last one in particular has a question that asks: "I didn't return my renewal lease in 60 days - can I be evicted?"

The short answer seems to be yes, but of course it doesn't say if it goes the other way, can they auto-renew you? (Even though you did submit it, knowing what the laws were if you didn't might help). My guess here is that if they can evict you for not sending it in, then you likely have a similar right to walk away with no notice - which was pretty much how my case was too - they could have kicked us out if we hadn't left.

I am not your lawyer, etc. Good luck, hope it helps!
posted by unsigned at 11:13 AM on March 3, 2008

I'm still waiting to hear from the office, have left two voicemails there since the first of the month :(
posted by sparrows at 6:55 PM on March 12, 2008