Month to Month Lease

[Daniel Ferris]

Hi BP,

I am asking a question from the perspective of a tenant and looking for your expertise. I have found a good deal of info on MTM leases but none that I can locate seem to directly address my specific question.

The situation:

I am currently renting and am entering the fourth year of my lease. We live in Pennsylvania in a suburb of Philly. 

Our lease has previously been a yearly lease, but when renewal time came up this year I decided it made sense to do a month to month considering that we are looking to buy a house. But the housing market is pretty strong it is definitely a sellers market, so we have had no such luck.  

The lease that we agreed upon was month to month with 60 days notice, and the lease does specify that 60 day notice to vacate must be given by the tenant (as I read it) but there is no similar disclaimer that the landlord has the right to terminate the lease with 60 days notice by no fault of the tenant, to rent it to someone willing to sign an annual lease. Rent has always been on time and there is nothing on our lease that we have violated. I am aware this is more of a legal question, but seeing as we (the tenant) have not given notice or indication that we would be moving, is the landlord legally able to market our apartment for rent, provide showings to prospects, and ultimately rent the apartment out, even though we have no desire to move? Because this is a legal question, is there any resources you have on this topic. 

Thanks for your assistance!

Dan

[Thomas S.]

Your landlord would be required to give notice as outlined in your state landlord tenant regulations. If there is no mention then probably 30 days.

Doubtful your landlord would market the unit before you give notice. If he was going to do that he would not have signed a M2M lease with you.