Every time I have moved out of an apartment it’s been sufficient to email the office my leaving notice. The current lease at my old place said “notice must be submitted in writing” under a section called “lease termination.” Perfect, so I sent the email, and moved out. I didn’t get a response but I actually didn’t get a response at my old place either so I figured they just made note of it.
Today—10 days before lease end—I get an email charging me for next month’s rent. $2000. Surely a mistake, I email the office and try calling but no answer.
I double checked the lease and—in a separate section titled “notice”—it said that all notices must be sent by mail. So we never technically terminated the lease, and now we’re on the much higher month-to-month plan for June. Because I told my roommates I’d take care of terminating the lease, I’m gonna have to solely pay for it since it’s not their fault they trusted my dumbass.
Obviously my fault and it’s a huge learning moment for me. Now I’m going to be out $2000. That’s on top of my already nearly $1000 lease at my new place. So my limited savings are now drained.
Fml
TLDR—didn’t read the lease closely and I’ll have to pay $2000 for a month of rent there, and nearly $1000 for rent at my new place.
Comments
Did they acknowledge your email? If they did you should fight that. If not, that sucks.
Any mention of “U.S. Mail” proper term or ‘postal service’, ‘postmark’, etc? Electronic mail is mail.
Talk to them in person and see if you can break up the $2000 into smaller payments or have a reduced payment since you are moving out.
Don’t pay it
You should fight this. They wanted notice by mail and they got it by (electronic) mail. It’s 2025 ffs. Be firm but polite and continue insisting you met the criteria for termination.
Good luck.
Id go to the leasing office and talk to someone. Id be surprised if they continue to ask you to pay. Especially since you did send notice and got an out office response back as proof of delivery.
Depending on the laws in your state, what you did qualifies as “in writing” as a signature can be electronic in many states.
I’d consult an attorney
Fight this. You put it in writing and mailed it to them – electronically! Send a follow up email referencing your original attached as a PDF. Worst case scenario they say no. You already sent in a notice to vacate the premises.
I tried to terminate my last lease by email, they replied saying they needed a hand written letter. So I did that.
They should have replied.
Fight that.
I agree with the consensus here. In 2025, unless the lease explicitly states that notice must be sent via physical mail (e.g., “postmarked by” or similar language), email should suffice, especially since electronic communication and signatures are widely accepted. If the lease is ambiguous, courts typically favor the tenant, not the landlord who drafted the lease.My advice: Spend ~$100 to have an attorney draft a cease-and-desist letter stating you provided written notice, the matter is closed, and the landlord can re-lease the apartment. Send it and move on. If they pursue it further, they’d likely lose in court, but having a lawyer’s letter adds weight. You’re probably in the clear.
The lesson, as you now know and as I hope my sons who are about your age don’t have to learn the hard way, is that there are certain things in life you can let slide and hope they are handled, and there are other things that you shouldn’t just cross your fingers about. Anything to do with leases, and mortgages, and insurance, and travel documents, and hotel confirmations in another country (to list a few) are the second type of thing.
If you’re terminating a lease, first pull out the signed lease copy and re-read (because you read it once before you signed it, right?) the section on lease termination, and communication, and the security deposit. Then do exactly that.
Always ask in person with those questions. Also, when moving into a rental, take pictures and video before and after you move. Same with the paperwork. Details matter.
Email is considered, “in writing” and is also a form of “mail”. It’s right in the name, “electronic MAIL”.
Email is electronic mail. They should have specified postal mail.
Same happened to me but I refused to pay and sent proof of email and their response as well as their response when we reached out and said “we are moving our after this lease but would like to wait until the new year. Can we get the cost of monthly rent for 2 months.” They responded some tripe about how they won’t even allow that for less than 1.5 times the usual rent so we dropped it but. They don’t have a leg to stand on given we gave reasonable notice. They didn’t pursue it after we sent back all the proof they were made reasonably aware and didn’t tell us it was insufficient when they could have.
Yeah I wouldn’t pay anything. Make em sue you.
Do they accept or issue other significant instructions via email (their issuing updated terms, your agreement to other points they alter or clarify, etc) ? I agree with the many others that email is written notice unless they were specific about registered mail or similar, but on top of that, if they have used email for important correspondance, or accepted it for other (no doubt to their benefit) notices from you, then their case is even flimsier.
I’m not really sure how they have moved you to a different agreement, surely either the contract naturally terminated itself (fixed term) and you’re good as long as you’re gone by the termination date, or it’s still in effect until one of you gives the other the appropriate notice – they can’t have it both ways.
Check your local laws. This might be illegal.
In Illinois, (at least it was years ago) the law states that the simple fact you have not renewed serves as sufficient notice of leaving.
Check every piece of correspondence they ever emailed you. According to your lease none of them were ever sent to you, because “all notices must be by mail”. See if you can find something illegal they did by not notifying you of something.
Ditto notices posted on the wall, or your door, or anything else.
For that matter, you did not receive the invoice for $2,000.
You sent the money already didn’t you?
And if you didn’t. Then you didn’t FU
Does it say “mail” or does it say “the U.S. Postal Service”?
Electronic mail (email) is mail. It’s right there in the name.
So not pay it. Who, in 2025 thinks of written letter in mail and not email when someone says “send a mail to managers address …”?
They should have returned answer to your mail and to have said that it must be in physical written form. Otherwise they were notified properly. If they try to charge you, tell them you will call a lawyer and that you will sue them cause they were notified early.
Property manager for a decade, email will suffice any sane judge would be discretionary. So long as the email was actually sent to management.
Go to r/legaladvice, but include the exact language of the Notice section as well as the city where you live. Does the Notice requirement apply equally to tenants and the landlord? Does it apply to all notices? Also, is there a Waiver section?
The landlord sent you an email demanding the next month’s rent. Can you argue that the landlord, by its own practices, has acknowledged that a Notice by “mail” includes email?
Have you sent other Notices to the landlord by email that were accepted (e.g., to make repairs) and acted upon? If these emails were accepted, you may be able to argue that, even if the rental agreement required a Notice to be sent by U.S. mail, they have waived the requirement by their own actions.
If the meaning of “mail” is ambiguous, contract language is generally interpreted against the party that wrote it (unless there is a clause that says otherwise).
Check with your state and local laws on the method for terminating a rental agreement. If the law says that ANY writing (including by email) is sufficient, then you may be able to argue that your rental agreement cannot impose stricter requirement.
Agreeing with the consensus that you shoukd fight this and that email should be sufficient. Question though is, what did you do with the keys on leaving? It might be a regional difference, but I’ve always had to hand keys in to someone when leaving a property, so extra surprised nothing was mentioned at that point.
Despite 100s of comments telling him to fight it OP seems intent on wallowing in his misery and just paying his extortionists off, so let him
Does it say it has to be USPS-specific?
If not, then I think maybe wiggle room for you, if does not clearly state through USPS or email, FedEx, UPS, etc. They need to clear up that lease, if so, and be specific
So it seems OK for them to communicate with you by Email by ending the notice in that manenr but not for you to communicate by email. Wonder if you do not pay what a judge would say in Court about an Email be considered as mail?
This feels like bad faith. They want to make it as difficult as possible to leave.
You don’t mention your location, but in many states email is considered a legal form of notification so you need to check your local laws before you pay that rent. There’s a good chance you can fight this and win.
Sub-lease some nights, fuck it.
Op, we are begging you to fight this 😭
Don’t pay that fuckin shit lol
Looks like I’m the minority here but “in writing” means paper, mail.
Just lie and tell them you did submit a written notice on the same day as your email but they must have lost it. They can’t prove they didn’t lose it and you can prove the email.
My last place had a paper for me to print out, fill out and hand to them. It was just me and my ex- I was moving, she was staying. I filled out the paper with just my name and gave it to the office.
Those idiots took it as everyone was moving out and had scheduled a showing. I had to go back to the office and ask them to point out where on the paper I gave them did it say my ex’s name..
Point is, cover all your bases. Keep it simple and dumbed down and email and mail them.
Fight them on it, please. I have had so many crappy land lords that pull various BS and we have gotten out of most of it by being persistent. I have annoyed so many land lords into getting rid of verious BS charges just to get me to go away.
Did the contract specify ‘snail’ mail and not ‘e’ mail?
I get that I’m going to be the odd one out here, about probably down voted to oblivion, but, I just want to say it. Good on you, OP. Recognizing your own mistakes, and taking accountability for it, that’s becoming increasingly rare. I can appreciate your attitude towards the situation.
That said, I’ll throw into the other side a little, it would probably be worth your time to try to talk to them, preferably in person. Might save you 2k. Or you might just be screwed. Either way, good luck, and I hope it works out for ya.
If it says by mail but doesn’t say to what address, then an email is fine – it is electronic mail and they did not specific “via the postal service.”
Contact them.
Idk the legalities of ending the lease but they might be ok with it anyway even if they don’t necessarily have to be.
The charge might just be a mistake. It sounds like they’re understaffed if they haven’t responded to 2 emails and a phone call.
Try calling them again in office hours. Maybe they got the email and made a note you were moving out but just forgot to cancel the rent charge.
Most states now consider email as mail for legal purposes.
Mine requires a signed notice to vacate 60 days in advance. Pretty common in this area at least.
So basically they can email you a bill but you can’t email them that your leaving. Tell them the same thing, that you don’t accept email for bills ..
Do they have a pattern of accepting notices by email or communicating to you by email. If so, there argument that they only accept postal mail notices is pretty weak.
Let them take you to small claims and then win
I stop renting apartments man. Better to rent a room or a house.
Oh, ouch.
They could have emailed you back that they needed it by mail but they didn’t b/c they wanted this to happen. I agree with others saying it is mail.
>it said that all notices must be sent by mail.
Fight this 100%. Email is mail. It’s just not postal mail. So unless the lease stipulates that your notice needs to be delivered to them via the US Postal Service (or postal service of whatever country you’re in), then they have no claim.
Also, it’s 2025. I don’t know why this landlord or management company is even trying to require tenants to physically mail them a notice to vacate. Seems like they’re just making things harder on themselves.
Email counts as in writing in many places
If they communicate(d) with you about the property and did other lease dealings via email you should challenge them. It’s not fair for them to be able to email you to their hearts’ content and force you to snail mail only the renewal or ending notice—that’s a “gotcha” clause to make money from unwitting tenants and not in good faith or in service of any conceivable purpose other than to inconvenience and catch off guard.
Ugh, lease traps are the worst! Wishing you luck with this.
Naw, fuck that. Email counts as mail in 2025. Did the lease specify physical/postal mail, with a provided address? Or did it just say “mail”? If the latter they can kick rocks. You mailed them