Suppose I’m moving to a new apartment and my old lease ends on the last day of September, and the lease of the new apartment starts on the first day of October.
I wouldn’t be able to move on Sept. 30th because my new lease won’t be starting yet, but I can’t move on October 1st because my old lease will have expired and new people are moving in.
When do I move?? This must be a common problem that people run into, but what do they do?
Rent the truck overnight, load it in the afternoon, sleep on some friend’s couch, move in the next day.
Often, though, there’s some wiggle room on one end of the lease or the other – the new tenant isn’t moving in until the weekend, or the old tenant moved out earlier. Far too often, you have to rent the new apartment a month before your old lease expires, and then you have a month to move gradually.
Yep, just what Finagle said.
And really, it can’t hurt to call your soon-to-be landlord. I wish I had - could have moved in gradually over a 3 day period instead of renting a UHaul overnight, being finally moved out right at midnight when the lease expired, and just generally not doing things I could have.
Course, it’s a good excuse to stay over at your SO’s place, if you have an SO and they have a place, of course.
Unless the landlord has someone moving in the very day after your lease ends, you can probably pay for a prorated day at 1/30 your monthly rent to stay over one more night. Leases don’t have to begin/end on the 1st/last day of the calendar month.
That’s usually something you can negotiate with your landlord. No reasonable landlord expects you to move in the second your new lease starts. S/he may ask for a bit more money, but in my experience that’s rare.
Personally, I make a point of having a couple of weeks of overlap between leases–the moving process is MUCH more pleasant that way. I figure it’s easily worth the extra money to be able to take your time about moving.