Upcoming battle with Management Company

what management company?

The question is when you signed the lease what was the period covered. If they wrote and you signed a lease that stated the rental period began November 1, then you have no argument, If you have a lease stating January 1 the new rent went into effect then you should have no issues not paying anything for prior months. In terms of late fees if you really owe for prior months then those balances would be late as of the due date in January.

As far as eviction, you are correct they would have to go to housing court to put things into motion. However most likely for the amount you owe them they will not and will probably just take it from your security deposit when they ask you to move out when your lease is up this year.

"As I understand it, they can't just evict me because they feel like it - they need to give me a chance to make an appearance in court before a judge will sign any eviction notice, correct?"

Yes, they CAN evict you because they feel like it -- in the absence of a valid lease. And yes, they would have to go through housing court to do it.

***

"Could I be subject to any late fees, interest, or penalties for not paying the rent?"

Yes, absolutely.

***

"I am not trying to screw anyone here, but I can't imagine they have any legal standing to retroactively raise my rent on a contract that wasn't completed until the middle of December and makes absolutely no mention of the November or December rents being covered by that contract."

You realize you can't just change an amount in a contract, sign it, send it back, and expect it to be valid, right? That's not how contracts work.

Bottom to top (and thanks for the quick replies everyone)

@NYCMAtt, Yes, I realize I can't just will a contract. It changed the price, signed it and sent it back. It was a negotiation. Had they accepted it, it would be a valid contract. They did not accept it, so it was not a valid contract, and eventually, I relented and agreed to their initial price. I don't think there is anything wrong with me trying to negotiate a rent increase that amounted to nearly $3,500 during the year.

There is now a valid lease and they will have the check in their hands the first of every month as they always have (this time with the higher rent for 2012). It appears they will reject my monthly checks because it does not include the additional $550 they are trying to retroactively charge me. However, I cannot imagine that any judge would reasonably levy fines/penalties on me for back rent because I will have been sending it - the management company will just be rejecting my check.

@MikeV The contract that I signed did not mention any date. The only date on the contract says that my lease expired in October, but doesn't specify that the new rent price is starting from November 1 (or January 1 or any other date). The contract is stamped as "accepted" on 12/16.

As mentioned, they still slide "bills" under our apartment door every month, and the bill for both November and December had the lower monthly rate (from the lease I signed two years ago) - I sent those checks off, and they cashed them. The bill for January had the higher amount (plus the additional $550 that they are retroactively trying to charge me for November and December). I paid the higher rent, but not the retroactive rent increase.

I do not understand how there are no lease dates listed on your lease anywhere as leases are pretty standard and always list the beginning and ending dates. And don't get your hopes up that someone will side with you over the invoices as they were still negotiating on the new lease which you already stated they put in that the old expired in October so it is reasonable to believe the new lease begins November.

Just figure out how big of an argument you want to get into with your landlord as somewhere along the line you will wind up paying the money in the form of lower security deposit back or time spent in housing court fighting it.

To me you are just trying to get around paying extra money that you would have been obligated to pay had you signed the lease back in October instead of trying to cross out amounts. They probably have the stronger argument since you acknowledged you wanted to renew and signed a contract that you altered which they did not accept. Had they never sent you a renewal contract until a month or two after your lease expired you would have a better case that you went month to month and they cashed your checks.

Either way it is a judgement call on your part because if they keep rejecting your checks because of the fact they want the $550 they will haul you in and claim you stopped paying rent. If this is the case I suggest you keep copies of all checks sent and if they are sending it back via mail then keep the envelope they returned it in so you are showing that you were timely with monthly rent. I suggest that you send future rent checks owed certified with a return receipt for proof that you have been paying.

To me you are causing yourself a lot of headache for something that we all probably would acknowledge is owed.

Many people pay large sums of money in order to move on with their lives. For you, it is a mere $550. Fix this now and just maybe, management will forget and renew your next lease. If you are not rent stabilized then why play this bad card.

I'm going to be the contrarian here and say that you did not have a valid lease in Nov or Dec because you did not have a document signed by both parties with agreed on terms. Therefore, you were month to month and the rent bills at the lower amount corroborate that.

I agree that its damn weird you have a lease that doesn't have a start date, but in any case as far as i'm concerned you can't back-date a lease with new terms (ie higher rent), especially if your rent checks were cashed.

In any case, you should have recieved a notice with your new rent 2 months before your old lease expired, not 2 weeks prior. That would have given everyone the opportunity to negotiate normally.

Finally, if you're just staying for the year, do what any other new yorker would do -- screw your landlord, never pay the $550, and don't pay your last month's rent and let them keep the security. And then hope that your next rental doesn't do a reference check with your previous landlord.

"And then hope that your next rental doesn't do a reference check with your previous landlord."

Right. Because landlords never do reference checks.

Oh by the way, they also never report you to the credit bureaus for nonpayment.

"then hope that your next rental doesn't do a reference check with your previous landlord."

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a building where the landlord doesn't do a reference check. That way, one would be living in a dump, for lack of better word. Seriously, OP you need to have a plan for next year. If you think this is a matter of principle, then remember principle will not get you accepted in the next renatl. Again, move on.

seems like he is needlessly going through a whole lot of mental stress for what is not really a whole lot of money. what if you had to use a full vacation day to go to court? I d imagine a persons' 1 day salaray (and consequent value of a vacation day) is at least 300 bucks (assuming you make atleast 60K here). If you have to go to court 2 days to settle it all, you are at minimum using up some dollar amount in that ballpark (real cash flows or not).

I also find it extremely odd that there's no dates on the lease. Are you sure? I'd check again very carefully. If there's not a date, there ought to be a reference to a lease term. If it says that it starts on the day that it's signed (which would be weird), then presumably the accepted date is the relevant one. But really, there must be a date. What does it say about lease term?

If there's really no date, I have no idea what that means. That's crazy enough you probably need to talk to an attorney to figure things out.

If there is a date and it says November, then you probably owe $550 and should pay it.

If there is a date and it says something other than November, than you owe the higher rent whenever the new lease started. From the expiration of your old lease until the start of the new one, you were a month-to-month tenant at the same price as the old lease, and the landlord agreed to this arrangement by cashing your checks for the old amount. Now, whether it's worth it to get into a battle with them over $550 is up to you; I'd personally probably clearly articulate the position that I was a month to month tenant at the older rate during the lease negotiations and stick by my guns. This means I'd start documenting my attempts to pay the landlord if they're not accepting payments, and I'd plan on moving at the end of my current lease term.

>I sent my rent check in for January with the new (higher rent) and got a call back from the management company that my check wasn't enough because I owe another $550 from the back rent. I told them I wasn't paying it because they can't raise their rent retroactively, and I don't owe it.

Didn't you acknowledge the appropriateness of the higher rent because you ultimately accepted it?

If you wanted to go for the lower rent, you could have as long as you felt you could have stayed without a lease (as a month to month tenant). Your acceptance of the higher rent was merely delayed, but it was still acceptance.

If $550 was 2 months, and we are talking about a 10% increase, I assume we are talking about old rent in the high $2s, and new rent in the low $3s. For $550, how long do you want to worry about this? Even if you are completely correct, they aren't going to let you off the hook, so how long do you want to deal with a landlord seeking money from you ... through this lease, to the potential deduction from your security deposit, to the potential for them to report to the credit bureaus (assuming this is a larger landlord), to your fear of an eviction proceeding (I wouldn't actually worry about this), ...

$550.

I've already given you more than $550 worth of advice.

yea, just pay solil the toll, save yourself the angst and quit being a cheapskate.

& send another check to Huntersberg for some sound advice

Huntersburg said that he "gave"the advice.
No payment check is needed.

This has nothing to do with being a cheapskate. This has to do with a bullheaded, inflexible management company who is trying to charge retroactive rent.

The wording on the rent only said
a) ....your lease will expire on 10/31/2011
b) You may renew a lease for (1) one or (2) years at your option as follows

There were no dates listed as either being November 1 or January 1. The only dates listed were the 9/15/11 date that the notice was dated and the "lease entered" stamp of December 7, 2011.

Nothing else.

I contend that my lease expired on 10/31 and from there, I became a month-to-month renter. They sent me bills for $2,675 (the old rent) and I paid them. Since I was no longer under contract, if they wanted to say that the prevailing rate was $2,950 I would have had to pay that if I wanted to stay. They could have sent me a bill for $5,000 a month-to-mnoth rent while we were negotiating. But they didn't they sent me a bill for $2,675 - which makes that the contracted rent and I paid it.

Consider these two options:

1. What if, while I was trying to negotiate with them for two months, while paying $2,675, I ended up successfully negotiating a rent of $2,500 to renew. Do you think for a second, they would have sent me a check for the $350 difference? Of course not - and they wouldn't have been legally required to (I assume) unless the new contract explicitly said it.

2. What if I decided not to accept their best/final offer in December, and said, nope, I'm going to move out at the end of the month because I didn't want to pay the $2,950. Do you think that they would have still been able to go after me for the difference between the $2,675 I was billed and paid and the $2,950 I turned down? Of course not.

Now, for point #2, you'll say "but you did later sign the contract, so you then accepted that rate, so you should pay the extra money." Ok, but the lease made no mention of any "retroactive" dating of the agreement which did not occur until early December. So in my mind, the new rate only becomes active from the date of signing (which is, at earliest December 1 (assuming a grace period or something for the early part of a month).

I have now spoken with a NYC tenant lawyer, someone from the state regulator, and a tenant advocate and they all side with me.

Of course, they all say that the landlord can (and likely will, given that they've rejected my last check) take me to housing court over this, and no one can be positive what a judge will do. But according to the three resources I've checked, they all claim that I am in the right, and the worst exposure I have is I'd have to pay the $550 at a later date.

So when does your current lease end? How did you specify the term of the new lease? I'm still totally confused about what your lease actually says about term or start or end dates.

"and the worst exposure I have is I'd have to pay the $550 at a later date."

As others have noted, going to housing court may make it difficult to rent in the future and I'd fully expect that the landlord won't renew your lease at the end of your current term, so that's a downside you need to make sure you're taking into account.

>The wording on the rent only said
a) ....your lease will expire on 10/31/2011
b) You may renew a lease for (1) one or (2) years at your option as follows

You must be talking about the cover letter. The actual renewed lease has to have dates. In any case,for the two months you had no lease renewal you were certainly month to month the moment LL cashed the check. Sounds like you are entitled to keep the $550.

>The woman said she wasn't going to accept the check and would be returning it.
If you don't have an executed copy(signed by both you and LL) of the lease renewal they dont have to cash it and sounds like will have you removed from apartment through procedures based on you being a month to month tenant. If you indeed have an executed copy, I dont know what the LL thinks they will accomplish returning this check. This behavior screams no executed lease renewal.

>Could I be subject to any late fees, interest, or penalties for not paying the rent?
Doubtful though an attorney may want to show you paying the proper rent at proper time to an escrow account.

Problem is you'll likely eat up the $550 with attorney fees and then some.

Disclosure; I am NOT a RE attorney.
My best friend is and have heard countless cases for what that's worth.

JPC you got it right, your maximum exposure is $550 because you have no aggravation threshold and your time also has no value. Also good luck when you do want to move and rest elsewhere or buy and take a mortgage and pass a board.

OMG just send them the $550 and STFU.

Seriously.

Landlords can and will raise rent, even if you think it's not "fair". Deal. It's the cost of RENTING.

"You realize you can't just change an amount in a contract, sign it, send it back, and expect it to be valid, right? That's not how contracts work." NYCMatt

Now that's funny.

JPC---Go to your local college for I believe there is a course on learning how to choose your battles wisely.

Have fun finding a landlord that's will accept you as a tenant next year.

@cooppreatt.

Jstfu and lower the price by $500k! It's only bubble profits that were never booked.

Stfu it's over.

Stfu bubble is done.

Stfu. U ain't never gonna see $1000psf. Stfu.

stfu

Bottom line: you are in the right here. The fact that they cashed your check at the old rent level indicates legally you were month-to month at that point. Do not pay the $550. Continue to pay your new rent. If they don't cash those checks, they are idiots. But you must prove you are trying to pay the new rent each month. A judge will side with you and you won't owe the back rent difference.

Seems like JPCrecom has frequent problems with his rental renewals:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/13955-building-at-200-east-87th-street
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/15366-tower-67

Agreed: if the start date on the lease was not retroactive, you were a month-to-month tenant until you signed the lease. You do not owe $550, as the professional sources indicate. Assuming you have a copy of your lease, you're in the clear until lease-end as long as you take measures to pay as advised by the professionals, but be prepared for no renewal, a bad referral, and improper dealing with your security deposit. If you don't have a copy of your lease, you're still a month-to-month tenant, so be prepared for all of the above with 30-days notice.

We still have no idea of the term of this lease. Amazing that the OP has consulted with SE, a tenant lawyer, a tenant advocate, "the state regulator" (whatever that means), and still the OP can't confirm the term of the lease - either the original or this theoretically revised lease.

Yes, once you go to court for 550 bucks your name is on the record for all future landlords to see. You may win the battle,,,,,,,

Why don't you at least try to speak with the President of the management company or write him/her a letter.

Wow!!!!!!! I just read the other threads JPC has posted on and I see that JPC has been in arguments over her lease renewals with every building management company she/he has rented from.

Just read the first one. They tried to renew her at $3400 (same as before), she countered at $2700. They played delay tactics, she found something else. The countered $3000, she said no-way, signed the other lease. They relented to $2700, too late. Even with her 10% increase this term, it sounds like she's still well below her old lease by over 10% despite 4-ish years of inflation. Sounds like she knows what she's doing.

>Sounds like she knows what she's doing.

If you want to move every 2 or 3 years, and when not moving have worry about facing an eviction.

Wow, I don't see where people think that I've had numerous battles with either place I've lived in. The first place tried to get me pay $3,400 and negotiating (which NYCMAtt seems to think is beneath him and offensive), I got them to reduce their offer down to $2,700. Unfortunately for them, they did too late.

The current place I am leasing was asking for $3,000 for a one year lease, and I negotiated to $2,675 for a two year lease. I have (until now) had no problems with them, and the only post I posted about my current building was actually defending it.

And I have no problem moving every 2-3 years. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to move in that it costs probably two or more full days of your time, and there's the $1,000 cost of movers, but so many people just accept blindly whatever their building tells them. Between vacation day to move, packing time, and moving company, I probably spent $2k to move from my last building. But I spent $800 month less in rent for two years. I'll take that net $15k savings

$550 isn't a heap of money and my time may be worth more than the time I'll spend on this (including potentially going to court), but the management company is 100% wrong. And for those of you just say "suck it up and pay even though the law appears to be on your side", it just seems pretty foolish.

I will absolutely be moving out of Manhattan at the end of this lease, and likely out of NYC in order to start a family, so getting blacklisted (which I have heard is a meaningful risk - especially, weirdly, if you win.) isn't a huge issue for me. I'm not worried about any black marks on my credit report or anything like that because a) I believe I am in the legal right and b) I've been sending in my rent checks, so they can't claim that I'm not paying.

Finally, yes, the new lease does not have any dates on it. It does not say when it begins, nor does it say when it ends. It just says that I can extend my lease for 12 months and that my previous lease ended 10/31. So is the start of the lease retroactive to the end of my last lease or does it start when the renewal lease was actually signed and agreed to? That's where the issue lies.

is this PDE?

I love it. You know you are definitively right about the $550 but you dont even know when your lease ends. I smell another upcoming dispute in 10 months and a security deposit that will be held up. The tenant lawyer, tenant advocate and person from the "regulatory agency" couldntt answer you? And in any case doesn't it seem odd to you that there is a possibility of the earlier date for lease end but no possibility that you could owe the $550?

This is is all 100% clear to me. But maybe inododo can help you with the upcoming legal battles since he has such great theoretical knowledge but has acknowledged no actual legal or case experience.

You shouldn't owe any additional monies for November and December. Your lease wasn't renewed until both parties had signed it. You mailed checks for the intervening months (hopefully earmarked) & your landlord cashed them. What it seems like they plan to do is reject all subsequent checks until it appears that you are 3 months in arrears; at which time they'll probably sue/move to evict you for non-payment. It's very important that you document all of your proffers of rent payments. Send everything by Certified Mail, Return Receipt. Good luck.

"Finally, yes, the new lease does not have any dates on it. It does not say when it begins, nor does it say when it ends. It just says that I can extend my lease for 12 months and that my previous lease ended 10/31. So is the start of the lease retroactive to the end of my last lease or does it start when the renewal lease was actually signed and agreed to? That's where the issue lies."

Your use of the word "extend" makes it sound retroactive to me, i.e. an uninterrupted continuation of that which ended on 10/31. If that's the wording, then I'd say you owe the $550 unless the law explicitly disallows retroactive rent (which I haven't heard).

>Your use of the word "extend" makes it sound retroactive to me, i.e. an uninterrupted continuation of that which ended on 10/31. If that's the wording, then I'd say you owe the $550 unless the law explicitly disallows retroactive rent (which I haven't heard).

So now you disagree with your prior statement and agree with my consistent statements.