If you learn anything from today’s story, it’s to pay close attention to anything you sign. In this story, it’s specifically a lease that the tenant reads carefully to look for a loophole, but the same concept holds true for anything you sign, not just a lease.

The tenant wanted to go from a year-long lease to a month-to-month lease, but the employee in the property management office claimed that would be a violation of the lease since the tenant didn’t give enough advance notice.

After rereading the lease very closely, it turns out there was a loophole that would solve the problem and really annoy the property management company. Even when they called their lawyers, there was nothing they could do to fight it!

Let’s read the whole story.

Always read the lease.

I got laid off during the ’08 crash and was doing temp work around the city to make ends meet while hunting for a new full time job.

This happened in the same month my lease was up in my apartment.

There was a weird rule in the lease where we could agree to renew last minute, but Changing the lease required 3 months notice.

OP wanted to switch to a month-to-month lease.

Three months prior I had a stable job two miles away, and now I didn’t know where I was going to end up.

I didn’t want to sign up for a full year because I didn’t know where I would be in a few months so I went down to the office and asked if we could change my lease to month-to-month.

The Karen managing the office enjoyed her petty power and wanted to force me into a full year or hit me with a few months rent worth of fines for not giving enough notice.

Livid I went home and went through the lease with a fine attention to detail.

There was a loophole.

There was a clause that said canceling or modifying the lease needed 3 months notice or else there were hefty fees.

There was another clause in the renewal section however that gave me an out.

Turns out if neither party actively requests a renewal the lease simply expires on it’s own.

I could leave at the end of the month without renewing and I technically wasn’t canceling the lease.

There was nothing Karen could do about it!

At the end of the month I had everything out and the place cleaned up.

I went down to Office Manager Karen and handed her the keys knowing full well she assumed the lease would be renewed and her precious metrics would be met. Oops.

A few months later I got a letter from their lawyers demanding three months rent worth of fees for my cancellation.

I replied with a certified letter “I complied with Section #, Line # regarding renewal and expiration of the lease by having all of my things removed at the end of the month. I consider this matter closed”.

Never heard back, and they never tried to collect again.

It’s always a good idea to read the lease! That was a great loophole!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an apartment tenant who is being called petty for blocking her parking space with trash cans.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person shares their thoughts.

Another person shares how an error in a lease worked in their favor.

I bet they did!

Here’s some advice.

Moving was definitely the right decision in this case. Hopefully they found a place where the property management employees weren’t quite as annoying and where they were able to do a month-to-month lease if they needed to.

Reading the lease closely really worked out. You know it’s good when the lawyers can’t even fight it.