<p>I was on a month-to-month lease when I needed to quickly relocate for work. I gave the thirty day notice and paid my rent in full. However, I physically vacated the apartment with 28 days left that I had already paid for, turned in my keys etc…</p>
<p>Are there external resources that I can use to find out how soon the apartment was re-rented? I was thinking of trying to contact the utility companies. I am just wondering if anyone here has done this.</p>
<p>If you are trying to get money for the 28 days you didn’t use an apartment - don’t bother because you are not entitled to the refund, unless the lease specifically states otherwise. I doubt this is the case. Apartments are not hotels and are not rented by days.</p>
<p>It will be violation of privacy for the utility companies to reveal anything to you.</p>
<p>As a landlord I can tell you it is very difficult to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>re-rent an apartment in only a few days; it has to be cleaned, advertised, shown, the tenants screened, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>find someone to move in in the middle of the month. It rarely happens.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So you are most likely going to have to eat those 28 days. Sorry.</p>
<p>When you paid your monthly rent, you had the right to retain possession of that apartment for the entire month. The fact that you voluntarily decided to move before the end of that month is irrelevant. </p>
<p>You won’t get any of that money back.</p>
<p>
In my state the landlord is legally required to make a reasonable effort to re-let the apartment as quickly as possible in order to minimize the cost to the prior tenant. </p>
<p>For example if someone breaks a lease and moves out 3 months into a one year term, the landlord can’t just let it sit empty for 9 months and collect the rent from the old tenant. They have to re-rent it. The previous tenant can be held responsible for the cost of re-renting it - advertising, commissions, etc., in addition to any lost rent.</p>
<p>Is there something in your contract that says that if the place were rented during a time period, you get some money back? Did you pay some penalty that might or would be abated if the landlord got someone within a certain period of time?</p>
<p>
Yes, that’s true in most states; it’s called “mitigation of damages.” But that’s if you break the lease, in which case you no longer have the right to possess the premises. The fact that the tenant in this case paid the rent for the month, and actually occupied the premises for the month, gave him the legal right to return and use the property, which he chose not to do. The landlord couldn’t hold him responsible for the following month’s rent, since he gave the required notice, but also couldn’t deprive him of the right that he had paid for. If he had decided, for example, to come back in week 3 and spend the weekend visiting friends, he had that right, and if the landlord had rented the apartment, the landlord would be liable for damages.</p>
<p>"I was on a month-to-month lease when I needed to quickly relocate for work. I gave the thirty day notice and paid my rent in full. However, I physically vacated the apartment with 28 days left that I had already paid "</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what the issue is here. OP was on a month to month lease and gave the 30 day notice and paid the rent in full for the month thereafter and then physically vacated the apartment 2 days later. Without knowing how that sort of thing is addressed in his lease or by law, if it is adreesed at all can’t say if it’s important whether the landlord, say, rerented the place a week later and got double rent for 20 or so days of that month and if the OP is entitled to any of that. That he might have been ALLOWED to have stayed to the very last day of that month before vacating the place and turning in the keys, may not mean anything if he did not exercise that right, or it might. I really don’t know. That is probably the more important first question the OP should be asking. If he does have some right to getting a refund if the landlord double dipped, he then has to find out if that did occur. Can he just ask a neighbor the question, or ask the neighbor the ask the new tenant if that is the case?</p>
<p>Also, did you pay the electric bill for that month? Or did someone and have it changed to their name durin gthat time period/ You would have that info at your own fingertips.</p>
<p>If the tenant has moved out and given the apartment back, I would expect mitigation of damages to apply here even though he did not break the lease.</p>
<p>IANAL though.</p>
<p>One of our kids rented an apartment. At the end of the second year, he didn’t renew the lease. Because of another commitment, the kid moved out the second day of the last month he paid. The landlord was awesome…we never asked, but the kid received a check for 1/2 months rent because they HAD rented the apartment within two weeks. However, we had given them three months notice so they had been advertising this rental. In addition, we left the place spotless. </p>
<p>I believe ours was an unusual situation. I can tell you, I still have the rental agents number and would deal with them again if need be!</p>
<p>
OP said he returned the keys, so the landlord would not have been expecting him to return to use the apartment again later in the month. I think the time to negotiate about the last month’s rent would have been before paying it. The tenant might suggest to the landlord that he could be out early, and ask about getting a refund if the apartment is rented right away. </p>
<p>IMHO a lot would depend on how much needed to be done before it could even be shown for rental, although, in general, the tenant did the landlord a favor by allowing him to access the apartment early in order to get it ready for renting again.</p>
<p>Probably smaller inventory landlords would be more flexible than the large complexes.</p>
<p>
It was only 28 days, for which the tenant already paid.</p>
<p>“I think the time to negotiate about the last month’s rent would have been before paying it.”</p>
<p>If I had moved out and not paid the last month’s rent (remember it was a relocation I had to go) I would have been billed for the remainder of the rent and on top of that an $800 reletting fee which was written into my lease as a penalty. This was not Joe Blow renting a duplex but a large complex managed by a national proeprty managment company so their leases are pretty comprehensive.</p>
<p>I was only thinking about looking into the matter because I recently received my final statement from them and their records only show half of the deposit I actually put down so I am now forced to deal with them regarding that problem. So it won’t hurt to check if the apartment remained vacant. I was just wondering what would be the best way to do it.</p>
<p>^I wasn’t suggesting you just leave without paying, but that you have a discussion with them regarding your situation and the potential for leaving early/getting some rent back, etc.</p>
<p>One place I rented I gave more than a month’s notice - I was buying a house and would be closing mid month. They told me if I was out by then, they would refund half that months rent. They had a tenant lined up that wanted to move in ASAP.</p>
<p>I think it unlikely with only 30 days notice that they would have the place turned around and rented such that there would be much overlap.</p>