MD tenet/landlord laws: Can I get out of my lease?

Factual Questions
1

Okay, I moved to the D.C. area for graduate school. At the time of the move, my husband did not have a job. I spent a frantic two weeks looking for a house before finding the one we now live in. My husband found a job that requires him to work from 11pm-8am, so he sleeps during the day. We live in a basement apartment.

We have a year lease that started on August 15, 2004. We pay $900/month and they pay all utilities except phone and internet connection. At the time, this was fine with us. Now, I just want out.

We’ve had our water disconnected once. On a separete occasion, our electricity was disconnected. This was in no way compensated by lowered rent for these two months or other considerations. We didn’t get our own entrance for months, the end of November I think, and there isn’t a complete, totally safe path from the parking lot to our house. Other issues are that my husband is often woken in the day by noise, and that they basically have unlimited access to our house (the laundry room is in the basement, as is one storage unit). I thought I would be more okay with this than I am. Finally, our landlord mentioned in passing that last year the basement either flooded or sustained a lot of water damage because of the fact that it’s right beside/below three hills. I am very nervous about this.

Now it’s near rent time again and they want to either raise our rent by $100/month (making it $1000/month) or have us pay 1/3 of the electric bill. This may not be a bad price for the area, but it isn’t what I agreed to. However, I feel if I don’t agree to pay this extra money, I’m in for a lot of trouble as my stuff is at least somewhat open to them. They haven’t shown themselves to be particularly untrustworthy, but I’m totally disorganized and I don’t want my disorganization and their upset to combine in a terrible way.

Does anyone know of any tenant adcovacy groups in Mongomery County, MD I can talk with? Is what I’ve had happen so far enough to break my lease? I don’t have a place to move to, but I’m more than happy to look. Or does any cool D.C. area doper need a tenant? :wink:

2

Tenant! Not tenet.
What is that?

3

I don’t know if you can get out of the lease…I doubt it. But a lease works both ways. How can they raise your rent during the lease period?

4

Here ya go…

Landlord-Tenant Handbook, Montgomery County, Maryland

That said I am unsure what your issue is. If the lease is up you can choose to leave or renew. The landlord is free to renegotiate the rent they want. It seems premature to assume the landlord will do anything ‘bad’ to you if you decide to move. Nothing in the law I am aware of (although admittedly IANAL so take with a hunk of salt) will protect you before the fact. Bes you can do is try to cover yourself from the problems you are afraid may happen (document your belongings…video tape them even, start moving items of value out to storage elsewhere, etc.).

5

Oh…

I assumed the lease was up and the lease was being renegotiated. Perderabo is right…the lease works both ways and both landlord and tennant are pretty much stuck with it till the term is up (or they both agree to dissolve the original lease and enter into a new one.

6

Thank you both.

I’m fairly certain I’m stuck also. It’s not a huge deal, it’s just that I’m worried it will become one.

Anyway, it looks like I have a lot of reading ahead of me tonight. If anyone can think of anything else I should be looking at, thanks in advance.

7

Standard Disclaimer:
I am not a lawyer. You should definitely retain a lawyer, or at the least a real estate agent, who is practiced in the laws of your area. The following is offered merely to give you a hint of what you might expect.

If you read the link I gave you it would seem you can end the lease at anytime with a few catches. Here’s the relevant bit:

My take on that is you are responsible for your lease till the landlord can re-rent the property and you may be responsible to cover the landlord’s costs in placing an ad and/or other related costs to re-rent the property. It also says you should be able to sublet the apratment but they say that may be restricted so you’d need a lawyer or someone to tell you for certain.

Here is another link: Office of Landlord-Tenant Affairs

8

I got out of a lease early a couple years ago when I lived in Prince George’s County (Greenbelt). My boyfriend and I had broken up, so we needed to end the lease early. Basically, we paid another month’s rent until they could rent it again. Once you tell them you are leaving, they have to make the effort to re-rent it, and in this area, it should go pretty quickly. Once it’s re-rented, you are off the hook.

However, my landlord was one of those big leasing corporations, and they had the money and lawyers to go after us if we didn’t pay…

BUT, it sounds like you rent from a private landlord… It doesn’t sound like they would be willing to spend the time and money to sue you. So it would basically be beneficial to them to just re-rent it out as soon as possible.

And, on the slight chance that they do sue, you have some ammunition… the electricity and power being shut off… the fact that they could gain access to your apartment any time without notice (for the laundry). IANAL, but I seem to recall that your landlord does not have the right to access your premises without notice or scheduling it. Also, the fact that they are raising the rent mid-lease. That stuff, along with the other issues could help you make a case that the place was unliveable, and you could show that you gave them notice and a reasonable time to re-rent it.

9

I just read through that whole document.

My instinct is that they can’t raise my rent, because it’s spelled out in the lease. However, this document appears to say that they can raise the rent if they give sixty days notice. Luckily, it looks like they can only do it once.

Gah! It looks like a lawyer is the way to go. At least for advice. Whack-A-Mole, I did look at that section, and I’m not sure how it ties in with my lease. It really looks like time for an in-person chat with a lawyer.

10

A lawyer is a good idea, if you can afford it. However, you could take a gamble… is your landlord just a private homeowner? Do you really think they would go through the expense and trouble of suing you?

I say, give them written 30-day notice, tell them to advertise the place, and find another place to live, and move out. Or alternately, you advertise the place because once they re-rent it, you can’t be held liable for the rent anymore.

11

nyctea scandiaca, I don’t think they’d sue. And as much as I wanted out, it was more a matter of “I can’t wait for my lease to end” until this rent issue came up.

So, since it just came up, I haven’t been looking for new housing. I feel like I’m suddenly between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The question is “What do we do NOW?” I don’t think that has a GQ-type answer, except “Look at your options”, which is part of what this thread is meant to address.

12

There are other things they can do beyond suing you to make your life a little less pleasant. Certainly in Illinois landlords will collect referrals from previous people you rented from and a report of ducking out won’t be viewed well by prospective landlords. I would also worry that they could ding your credit record but I am not sure a landlord can do that.

Best answer, as usual to these sorts of questions here, is get an attorney familiar with this are of the law in Maryland. As a first step, and probably free at the outset, is to contact the Office responsible for this stuff in Maryland (I linked to it ina previous post). If they are anything like typical Illinois bureaucractic cruddy government getting a useful and timely answer from them may be difficult but at least it is another option. Perhaps Maryland government agencies are a model of efficiency :rolleyes: .

13

Having the water or electricity turned off seems to be grounds for termination if they occur again. No landlord can invade your space without prior notice which you did, I presume, before moving in, but it is reasonable for you to set proscribed times when it is allowed, as long as the times are reasonable. In some locals, such as in Hawaii, if you break your lease, they cannot assess you for more money than the balance of your lease, but they must prove that they did their best rerent their rental. If they do not, it lapses into the rules of a month-to-month tenancy and the most you pay is the balance of the current month + one(month).

14

But if even a small landlord puts a note in your credit report that you failed to pay a debt you owed, you’ll be hampered by this for quite some time. Should you try to obtain a mortgage, the bank will likely ask you to clear the debt first.

So a landlord that lacks money and lawyers is not without recourse.

15

IANAL, however, I would think that the fact that a) he did not pay his water bill,
b) he did not pay his electricity bill (assuming this is why they were cut off, plus the fact that after you rented he mentioned you might drown in your sleep in a rainstorm would all be breaches of the contract which would, at the very least, guarantee a liveable apartment. I would think that HE has broken the lease, and that you can move without problem. Try contacting local legal aide and see what they say.

16

From http://www.marypirg.org/renter/renter.html

Under a written lease for a specified period (usually a year), the landlord may not change the terms of the agreement by raising the rent or requiring the tenant to start paying utility bills until the end of the period. After the existing lease runs out, the landlord may properly negotiate a new lease with increased rent or different conditions.

Under an oral lease, the landlord similarly may not change the agreed rental rate until the end of the term. In this circumstance, however, the rental period is usually much shorter—a month or week, depending on how often rent is paid. The landlord can easily raise the rent under an oral lease, provided s/he gives proper written notice. Since a rent increase notice has the same effect as a notice to end the current lease, the time periods explained in Section 7 (Ending the Lease) also apply to rent increases. Normally, the landlord must give one month’s advance notice if rent is paid monthly or one week’s advance notice if rent is paid weekly (except in Baltimore City where longer periods apply).

  • and -

If the condition of the apartment is very bad, the tenant may be justified in withholding rent from the landlord and paying it into court instead. If the proper procedure has been followed, the landlord will not be able to collect this rent money until the repairs have been made. This procedure, which is called “rent escrow,” is available under Maryland law, but is subject to city or county rules that override the state law. For example, in Prince George’s County, the Director of the Landlord Tenant Office has the power to set up a rent escrow account, but only after certain preliminary findings have been made.

The tenant is strongly advised to consult an attorney before attempting to withhold rent in escrow… In order to justify withholding of rent, the defect must be one that presents “a serious and substantial threat of danger to the life, health and safety of the occupants.” In other words, minor repairs or aesthetic problems such as worn rugs, cracks in walls, peeling paint, or broken air conditioning, are not grounds for rent escrow.

The tenant may use the rent withholding procedure if any of the following conditions exist in his/her apartment:

- **Lack of hot or cold water**
- **Lack of heat, light, electricity**
- Lack of adequate sewage disposal
- Infestation of rats or mice (except in one-family buildings)
- Presence of lead paint in the apartment
- Serious structural defects (such as a fallen bathroom ceiling)
- Existence of a fire hazard
17

Go to the Office of Landlord-Tenant Affairs in Montgomery County (a link to which is given above) and see if you can either get advice from somebody there or if you can get them to do some conflict resolution negotiation with your landlord.

18

I think the question you need to ask yourself is this:

Am I going to be able to find another basement apartment (or something similiar) in Montgomery County, in a suitable area, for less than $1000/Month?

It’s going to be hard, really hard.

19

My emphasis.

Here in Baltimore, that would probably apply to at least half the rental properties.

20

It’s possible. I’m paying $1025 for a one bedroom in Rosslyn, so if I could find that, I imagine that she could find something equivalent in Montgomery County. Does your lease have anything in it about terminating the lease?