Landlord needs 60 days notice.....so hard to make everything line up!

[diznee25]

Has anyone else been in this predicament?

Our apartment complex requires (by Maryland state law) 60 days notice if we move. Didn't really think this was a problem until we started looking at other rentals.

New potential landlords want people to move in immediately....all have said they won't wait 2 months for us. By "all" I mean the 2 places we've found in the past 12 weeks. So hard to find landlords in town homes/single family homes that will take pets!

However, we are weary to just blindly put in our 60 days notice incase we don't find something. When we do put in our 60 day notice, we have to sign papers...so I don't know if that's something we can back out of incase we don't find anything.

Currently we are month to month, but even so they still need the notice.

If anyone has been in this situation, what have you done?

Thanks for any insight!

diznee25

 

[thomas998]

I think they may be lying to you. As far as I know only Delaware requires 60 days notice. Maryland law only requires 30 days notice. Only thing that might change that would be if there was specific language in the contract you signed, but if you are now on a month to month I doubt it.

 

[NonScents]

I think they may be lying to you. As far as I know only Delaware requires 60 days notice. Maryland law only requires 30 days notice. Only thing that might change that would be if there was specific language in the contract you signed, but if you are now on a month to month I doubt it.

I agree with this. I used to live in Balto and moved from one apt to another. My lease required 30 days notice. If your lease does specify 60 day notice, you should check if that is legal in your state. It could be different for month to month; I only had 1 year leases.

 

[SandrA9810]

Well if you put down a deposit now, I don't see why a landlord wouldn't hold the apartment for you till you move in. Maybe ask for the first month free, and up the rent like $25 a month for the next year. Private landlords have room to work with you, if they want to.

 

[jedijill]

If your lease says 60 days, not much you can do. My old apartment complex was going to 60 days notice even on a year lease...luckily my last lease only said 30 days. I start looking early for a house to rent and sucked it up and double paid a month once I found something that I was looking for. Here, single family homes are going like hotcakes. People aren't buying houses and are looking for rentals...I was the first person to see my current house and I snapped it up the same day. Apartments are a different beast as single family/privately owned rentals but the occupancy rate for rentals overall is super high due to the housing market.

I scoured Craigslist, real estate and property management sites, rentals.com, and I drove every single street in the neighborhood I wanted to live in several weekends in a row. A lot of owners don't advertise and only put up a sign.

Good luck!

Jill in CO

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

have you talked with your current place to check and see what their policy really is ?

If all places know that they expect their tenants to give 60 days notice, then the new place should be more understanding about not being able to move in right away, if they expect the same thing from their residents .

As for being in that situtation, yes, we've been there before. We pretty much just had to eat the cost of paying 2 places. Pretty much the rental office said the only way we wouldn't have to pay is if somebody else signed into a new lease and they placed them in our appt. Believe me, they didn't put any effort into it and we had to pay the 2 months.

 

[diznee25]

Thanks everyone....looks like I'll have to dig up our lease and double check. But I did call down to the front desk, and they said it's a 60 day notice regardless of type of lease (month to month, a year, etc.) Plus, my DH's coworker was the one who told us that 60 days was state law (in Maryland.) We just took his word for it, because he's lived here longer than we have. But I'll look into it.

Otherwise we'll just have to do what someone else said, suck up and pay for the 60 days even if we leave earlier.

I thought private owners would bend...we are willing to give first and last month and security deposit up front (all of it)....but they won't bite.

Yea, we really need to get out there and be more aggressive with house hunting. But my DH is not a "spur of the moment" type of guy....there's no way he'd put in our 60 days notice without another rental contract in hand!

Thanks for the replies, you've given me a lot to chew on.

diznee25

 

[diznee25]

have you talked with your current place to check and see what their policy really is ?

If all places know that they expect their tenants to give 60 days notice, then the new place should be more understanding about not being able to move in right away, if they expect the same thing from their residents .

As for being in that situtation, yes, we've been there before. We pretty much just had to eat the cost of paying 2 places. Pretty much the rental office said the only way we wouldn't have to pay is if somebody else signed into a new lease and they placed them in our appt. Believe me, they didn't put any effort into it and we had to pay the 2 months.

You are correct, "other places", being apartment complexes do understand that we need to give notice. But we're looking into renting town home/single family home so private Landlords are not as sympathetic. Which is such a pain!

Yea, we'll probably just have to eat the cost of most of the 60 days....it's a lot of money, but I guess we just gotta bite the bullet too!

diznee25

 

[MyDizneyBoyz]

In all honesty, I'd question whether they can enforce the 60 days notice as that technically extends beyond the term of your lease if it's a month-to-month.

Do you have a written lease that says it's month-to-month? I'd do some research before blindly agreeing to it... it may very well be legal and enforcable but it can't hurt to question it and get an accurate answer from a local housing authority.

A quick Google search turns up info like this which would make me, if I were in your situation, willing to make a few phone calls if it could save a month or two of rent payments:

http://www.marylandpirgstudents.org/renter/section-seven

Good luck!

 

[Skye23]

As a Landlord's daughter in this current housing market I can tell you with all certainty my family would never hold any of our rental properties for 60 days rent free for anyone short of God Almightly and I'm not sure we'd hold one for him either. No matter who you are, we can find another decent tenent to take that property in 30 days or less and since we have to pay the mortgage every month regardless of if a property is rented or not we're not going to wait 2 months with no income. Now if you pay, we don't give a fig when you move in, heck you can never move in and that will suit us just fine.

Apartment complexes are a different animal, but single family houses have to pay the mortgage and they cannot afford to wait sans-rent for someone to move in.

 

[cornflake]

Well if you put down a deposit now, I don't see why a landlord wouldn't hold the apartment for you till you move in. Maybe ask for the first month free, and up the rent like $25 a month for the next year. Private landlords have room to work with you, if they want to.

Because they could rent it to someone else and not be out two months rent for no particular reason.

 

[moonpie85]

As a Landlord's daughter in this current housing market I can tell you with all certainty my family would never hold any of our rental properties for 60 days rent free for anyone short of God Almightly and I'm not sure we'd hold one for him either. No matter who you are, we can find another decent tenent to take that property in 30 days or less and since we have to pay the mortgage every month regardless of if a property is rented or not we're not going to wait 2 months with no income. Now if you pay, we don't give a fig when you move in, heck you can never move in and that will suit us just fine.

Apartment complexes are a different animal, but single family houses have to pay the mortgage and they cannot afford to wait sans-rent for someone to move in.

 

[crashbb]

Well if you put down a deposit now, I don't see why a landlord wouldn't hold the apartment for you till you move in. Maybe ask for the first month free, and up the rent like $25 a month for the next year. Private landlords have room to work with you, if they want to.

But why would they they want to?

I cannot imagine asking a potential landlord for a month's free rent. As a PP said, they'd be fine if the OP wanted to start renting and not move in - but that would be no better than eating some of the 60 days rent on the current place (they'd be carrying two rents and have the same expense no matter which place they were living in).

 

[starry_solo]

I did a quick search on Maryland law re: notice and this is what I found (looks like a summary of the law) so I'm not sure how accurate this is:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8594890_monthtomonth-lease-laws-maryland.html

Unsubsidized vs. Subsidized
If a month-to-month lease is not federally subsidized, as in the case of Section 8 or other federally subsidized housing, both the landlord and the tenant have the right to terminate the rental agreement. One months written notice is mandatory from the party that wants to end the lease. In Montgomery County and Baltimore City, two months notice is necessary. If it is a subsidized rental, the landlord may only terminate for valid reasons, such as non-payment or rent.

But here's something from the Maryland Attorney General's Office:
http://www.oag.state.md.us/consumer/landlords.htm