[IN] Landlord trying to extort 2 months' rent

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[IN] Landlord trying to extort 2 months' rent

Story time. Throwaway from obvious reasons.

Our apartment complex requires written notification at least 60 days before a lease expires that the tenant does not intend to renew the lease. If they do not get a notice before the 60-days-before mark, your lease is automatically renewed at 2-month increments until you sign a new one. I typed a note, physically signed and dated it, put it in an envelope addressed to the leasing office, and dropped it in the safety deposit box slot in the leasing office. I am 100% sure that I did this at least a week before the 60-day mark.

Fast forward about a month, around 30 days before the lease expires. The new apartment complex we're currently working with calls my current complex's leasing office to verify some information (like my rent history, whether I'm actually renting there like I say I am, etc.). Current complex tells them that we haven't turned in anything about leaving. New complex emails me and tells me this, and I call current complex to inquire politely about WTF is going on. (This was yesterday, Wednesday.)

I was told by the leasing office manager ("Manager") that nobody ever received my letter, and that my lease was set to extend for 2 months, and that I would be financially responsible for 2 months' rent (over $1000) regardless of whether I lived there or not. Obviously I was very frustrated, and made that very clear, repeating that I had definitely turned it in. Manager said she would check with the other employee tomorrow and see if he saw it or did something with it. Okay, little freaked out at this point.

Thursday (today) rolls around, and I call the leasing office around 5 pm. I get the other employee, not the Manager, who had already left for the day. I identify myself and give a quick summary of the situation and ask the employee if Manager had relayed the information and if they had found anything. He says Manager never mentioned anything. So right off the bat I’m pissed since Manager seems to have brushed this problem off. Employee tells me that the slot that I put the letter in is secure and only accessible with a key that only the 2 leasing office employees have. He says that people regularly turn in intent-to-leave notices in this slot and that they scan them and record it in a book. He checks this book and their records and reports that they never received anything.

At this point, I know this situation is 100% their fault. I did my part, and they simply fucked up. And now they’re trying to extort 2 months of rent from me because they just “happen” to have no record of me turning in this notice. They’re trying to jerk me around because I’m young and they think I’ll just cave and fork over >$1000.

I ask when the manager is coming in tomorrow (Friday), and employee says noon, so I say my girlfriend (other tenant) and I will be coming in to resolve this matter in person, which we plan to do.

Today, I confided in a professor (who is also a practicing lawyer) at my university, and he said in the future, I should turn in things like this in person, have someone sign and timestamp it, and request a copy. I totally agreed with him, and will absolutely do this in the future. As for how to approach the current situation and the confrontation tomorrow, he recommends explaining the situation politely in its entirety, making it very clear that we do not intend to pay and that the leasing office’s lack of due diligence and irresponsibility is the reason for all of this. If they don’t budge on it, he says I should threaten them with (1) social media backlash and (2) negative press.

Basically, I should threaten to report them to my contacts (fellow students, close faculty) at every nearby university for predatory rental practices and ensure that potential student tenants will steer clear of them. Not only this, but I should barrage them with negative social media posts—posts on their Facebook page, tweets at their Twitter account, posting on my own Facebook explaining the situation, calling them out, and tagging them in the post. Also, I have located the complex’s profile pages on at least 6 major apartment rating/database websites (ApartmentRatings.com, for instance), and he said I should 1-star the complex on them all and explain the situation, clearly stating that they jerk tenants around, pretend to lose documents, and try to extort money. I should go into this confrontation tomorrow having these posts ready to go, and make that known to the Manager if they stand their ground after I politely decline to pay. He says he’s done this personally and has had friends threaten/do similar things, all with good responses from the offending parties since social media backlash reaches so many people so quickly.

My questions to you all are:

(1) Do you agree with his recommendation? I can’t really threaten legal action since they’d probably call my bluff pretty easily. But this social media stuff, I could absolutely do and would gladly do.

(2) If this actually works tomorrow—i.e., they agree not to charge me 2 months’ rent and just let me leave on April 30 like normal when our lease expires—what do I say? What do I demand? Should I demand something in writing? I just don’t want them to pretend to agree just to get us out of their face and then go back on their word the next day. Not sure how to proceed if these threats end up working.

(3) Any other advice would be appreciated. Reminder, this meeting is at 12 noon tomorrow (about 14 hours from now.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

TL;DR: Apartment complex claims not to have received my 60-day notice of my intent to not renew my lease and is trying to automatically extend my lease for 2 months and hold me responsible for that rent (>$1000). I know I turned this notice in—they either just simply fucked up or are intentionally trying to extort me. Either way, a lawyer friend of mine, seeing as I probably couldn’t afford to actually take legal action against them, recommends that I (1) threaten to call them out on social media and apartment rating websites and (2) threaten to spread the word to as many other students/local universities as possible about their predatory rental practices. I have a meeting with the leasing office manager at 12 noon tomorrow.

/r/legaladvice Thread