On 9/7/08, we moved into this tiny, stingy apartment and we have had nothing but problems with the landlords and the apartment itself. We really want to move out, but the lease binds us here for 14 months. Recently, however, they said there was a mistake in the lease pertaining to the amount of the move-in deposit and that we needed to come in and sign a new copy.
The situation is this: our move-in deposit was equal to one month's rent, $359. When getting the money order to pay the deposit, we accidentally got $379 (mixing up the $359 and $479 apartment rates). When we got to the leasing office, the lady told us of our mistake, but said that she could apply the extra $20 as credit to the first month's rent, and we accepted. Immediately after that conversation, we signed the lease, got our keys, and moved in later that day. The lease stated that our deposit was $359, which would have been correct if the extra $20 was kept as future credit.
On 10/1/08, we went to pay our rent in person to ensure that our payment of $339 would be accepted along with the $20 credit, and they allowed it. A few days ago, we received a message on our door stating we had an outstanding balance. When we called to get further details about it, we were eventually told that we would need to sign another copy of the lease because they needed to change the deposit amount from $359 to $379. She said we were given the wrong information when we were told that the extra $20 was to be credited to our account.
There's a slight catch though. Our outstanding balance was something like $10.13. She told us about the deposit issue and that the $10.13 was from an unpaid water bill, though I'm pretty sure we paid that on top of our second bill when the second one arrived. Anyway, since the balance didn't seem to come from the $20 shortage, it seems that even though they couldn't separate the $20 from the deposit, they credited it to our rent anyway, so by re-signing the lease we are being given a $20 concession. In addition, because there was quite a bit of anger/confusion on the phone pertaining to the supposedly unpaid balance of the water bill, she credited another $10.13 to void the payment to resolve the issue. That's a total of $30.13 to shut us up and stop the conflict. We weren't informed explicitly or implicitly by the lease office about the $20 concession, they can't use the "money paid for damages" argument to force us into re-signing, can they?
Can we get out of the lease and move out of this apartment? From what a few lease office people of other apartment complexes told us, if they need us to re-sign a lease in a case like this (especially if the lease was incorrect from the moment of the original signing), the current lease is null and legally non-existent. Signing the revised copy of the lease will definitely anchor us to this apartment. Is the change of a monetary amount on the lease, along with us not being aware of their attempt to smooth over the error behind the scenes, enough to allow us to break from the contract?
The situation is this: our move-in deposit was equal to one month's rent, $359. When getting the money order to pay the deposit, we accidentally got $379 (mixing up the $359 and $479 apartment rates). When we got to the leasing office, the lady told us of our mistake, but said that she could apply the extra $20 as credit to the first month's rent, and we accepted. Immediately after that conversation, we signed the lease, got our keys, and moved in later that day. The lease stated that our deposit was $359, which would have been correct if the extra $20 was kept as future credit.
On 10/1/08, we went to pay our rent in person to ensure that our payment of $339 would be accepted along with the $20 credit, and they allowed it. A few days ago, we received a message on our door stating we had an outstanding balance. When we called to get further details about it, we were eventually told that we would need to sign another copy of the lease because they needed to change the deposit amount from $359 to $379. She said we were given the wrong information when we were told that the extra $20 was to be credited to our account.
There's a slight catch though. Our outstanding balance was something like $10.13. She told us about the deposit issue and that the $10.13 was from an unpaid water bill, though I'm pretty sure we paid that on top of our second bill when the second one arrived. Anyway, since the balance didn't seem to come from the $20 shortage, it seems that even though they couldn't separate the $20 from the deposit, they credited it to our rent anyway, so by re-signing the lease we are being given a $20 concession. In addition, because there was quite a bit of anger/confusion on the phone pertaining to the supposedly unpaid balance of the water bill, she credited another $10.13 to void the payment to resolve the issue. That's a total of $30.13 to shut us up and stop the conflict. We weren't informed explicitly or implicitly by the lease office about the $20 concession, they can't use the "money paid for damages" argument to force us into re-signing, can they?
Can we get out of the lease and move out of this apartment? From what a few lease office people of other apartment complexes told us, if they need us to re-sign a lease in a case like this (especially if the lease was incorrect from the moment of the original signing), the current lease is null and legally non-existent. Signing the revised copy of the lease will definitely anchor us to this apartment. Is the change of a monetary amount on the lease, along with us not being aware of their attempt to smooth over the error behind the scenes, enough to allow us to break from the contract?
