Just get me out of here!

March 7, 2011 6:03 PM

Maryland Residential Rental question: Is the lease renewal letter and rental increase claim issued by my property management company valid?

My property management company mailed me a letter dated January 31, 2011 indicating that my annual lease would auto-renew on April 1, 2011 if I did not give 60-days notice that I would be vacating the unit. The letter also stated that they would be increasing the monthly rent by $50. To comply with the 60-day notice to vacate I would have had to give notice by February 1, 2011 that I agreed to the terms of the new lease including the rental increase. I want to vacate this unit.

My question pertains to the portion of Maryland State law that indicates the following:

If your lease has an automatic renewal clause, the landlord must notify you of a rent increase or any other change with enough notice for you to decide whether you want to renew or not.

This information above is per the following site: http://www.oag.state.md.us/Consumer/landlords.htm#renewals

So, I would have had one business day to give notice agreeing to the new terms if I wanted to comply with the 60 day notice provision. If I am interpreting this correctly, do I have a leg to stand on in terms of being able to break this lease that has apparently already auto-renewed even though I've indicated to the management company that I've intended to vacate the unit because I do not desire to pay the increased rental rate. FYI, I also intend to phone the local Legal Aid Bureau (listed on the MD Attorney General site) tomorrow for their professional opinion. I know you are not my lawyer.

posted by Asherah to Work & Money (1 answer total)

It does seem that there's a grey area here. That said, I spent a little time looking through the Maryland Code, and I can't find anywhere this "enough notice" thing defined anywhere. (The Office of the Attorney General's website is useful, but it isn't the law.)

What follows is the expostulations of a non-lawyer and should probably be ignored: When did you actually receive the letter? It seems to me that if you had notified them immediately when you received the letter, saying that you didn't receive the letter in a timely fashion and that you wanted to terminate the lease, I think you would have had a better leg to stand on. As it is, the fact that you waited a month between receiving the letter and looking for this loophole doesn't really help your case. The rental company might have been accused of acting in bad faith if you had contacted them immediately and they refused to break the lease, but your silence for the rest of the month could have been interpreted on their part (in good faith) as a tacit acceptance of renewal, as the terms of your lease presumably say.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:25 PM on March 7, 2011