I am trying to figure out the worst case scenario here, should my landlord attempt eviction or take us to court.
Background:
I have been in the same market rate apartment for 3 years and was planning on staying for a 4th. Our building went through a shake-up in management last year during our lease renewal and we never got a copy of our executed lease returned to us (though we have a copy without the landlords signature and e-mails from the negotiations). The current management claims only to have our 2011 lease. In any case, our 'lease' is supposed to expire at the end of the month. Around the 10th of the month (while I was out of the country) we got notice that they want to raise our rent by 20% starting on September 1 and are unwilling to lower that increase.
We are not willing to pay that price and are willing to move. However, their timing is pretty bad - I'm a PhD student and I consult thus making a housing search during the academic semester nearly impossible. Had we gotten earlier notice we could have figured out how to move by September 1. My next good window to move is January 1. We are willing to pay a 10% increase for those months but find the 20% both unaffordable and distasteful.
My questions:
-Which lease is in effect and does that affect our holdover status?
-If we don't reach a mutual agreement on price but continue to send payment at or above our current price, how much exposure do we have should we go to court? What if they don't accept payment?
-If they start eviction proceedings, how long will that take? We will be out in 4 months anyway - is that worth the LL's time?