Is 14 Day Notice Sufficient to End a 9 Month Lease
How much notice is the tenant required to give to the landlord if she is moving at the end of a 9 month lease?
I live in NEW JERSEY and this is an owner-occupied 3-family.
The lease with my tenant ended on June 30.
One month earlier she was ecstatic that I offered to renew her lease at the same rate and I fully expected her to sign a new lease.
She informed me on June 16 that she is moving on June 21. She paid me rent for the month of June.
There is no provision in the lease for ending it.
I withheld 1 month's rent from her sec. dep. because I read in several places that a New Jersey tenant who intends on moving out at the end of a long term lease must give at least 30 days notice to the landlord or the lease automatically reverts to a month-to-month lease (which also requires 30 days notice by the tenant).
She took me to Small Claims Court and won the case. She was awarded double the rent I withheld. The Judge stated that there is no law dictating that she needed to give any notice and because there was nothing mentioned in the lease, she was awarded the Judgment. The Judge thought it irrelevant that she was ecstatic with my lease renewal proposal.
I will absolutely from now on add at least a 30 day notice requirement to all my future leases.
(1) Can she give me just 14 days notice?
(2) Does she have to pay me July's rent?
(3) Can I use her security deposit for July's rent?
(4) Was this Judge correct?
(5) MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHAT LEGAL CITES & PRECEDENTS ARE MOST RELEVANT?
(6) What, if any, recourse do I now have - any other suggestions?
Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer me.
Re: Is 14 Day Notice Sufficient to End a 9 Month Lease
You already lost your court case. Unless you're appealing, it's over and there's no point in rehashing what the judge has already told you.
If somebody leases from you for a fixed term and there's nothing in the lease that automatically extends the term or requires notice to end on the date the lease, by its terms, ends, then the tenant can move out per the lease without giving you any notice. You already know when the lease ends. You wrote it.