What does "A minimum of one calendar month's previous notice" mean?

Question

my tenancy agreement says:
"(5i). The Tenant may terminate the tenancy at the end of a calendar month or on any day thereafter by giving to the Landlord a minimum of one calendar month's previous notice in writing. In th event the Tenant failing to give due notice, the Landlord shall be entitled to claim up to one month's rent in lieu of notice."

I will terminate the house on 26 June 2011. I gave the written notice of my termination on 12 May 2011, which I thought far more than one month and was enough. But the Landlord has written by e-mail
"The earliest we can release you from your contractual obligations is 1 July 2011 as you will remain responsible for the rental costs for the full calendar month of June due to the minimum notice required, as stated in your Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (5i)", where the clause (5i) is the statement I wrote above.

According to the statement (5i) given above, who is right?

With respect to their understanding, I should have written the notice the latest at 30 April 2011, but then it makes 56 days, not one month?!

Answer 1

The wording of the contract ALMOST supports the landlord's claim. Here's how you should respond:



"Section 5(i) of my tenancy agreement states that I may terminate the tenancy at the end of a calendar month OR ON ANY DAY THEREAFTER. I have given you the minimum one calendar month notice in writing. I hope this does not become a legal matter."



The landlord might try to play word games with this, but I believe the letter of the agreement supports your side.



Ed: The people above aren't reading the actual agreement. The landlord's position is that you can only end your tenancy at the end of a calendar month, but the agreement does NOT say that. Maybe it was what they MEANT to say, but they didn't say it clearly at all.



Ed2: Depending on where you live, the clause above may not be legally enforceable. For example in California, the notice given by a tenant MUST be the same length of time as the time between payments (monthly, for example: http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/catenant.pdf). Where do you live?

Answer 2

Sounds like the landlord either doesn't know the legal meaning of "one calendar month" (and therefore needs to be told), or he's trying to screw you over.



Unless you're still in a fixed term of a tenancy, there's no way you can be held to longer than one month's notice - REGARDLESS of what the tenancy agreement says.



If the tenancy agreement tried to hold you to longer than one month (which yours doesn't, in fact, even though your landlord seems to think it does!) then it would be regarded as an unfair term and therefore unenforceable. It's a basic principle of tenancy law.



I suggest you play it the naive way, pointing out that the legal meaning of calendar month is "A period from a specified day in one month to the day numerically corresponding to that day in the following month".



Therefore your contractual obligation is, at most, 31 days' notice, and you have given 45 days' notice, which is more than enough.

Answer 3

You are correct. The only thing that a calendar month deals with is that if it straddles the end of Feb, you are required 28/29 days, on months that have 31 days, you would be required to give 31 days.



So, if your notice was Feb 10, you would only have to give 28 days, if it was in July, you would be required to give 31 days.



Kevin...you are correct, except I WAS reading the contract. I do not give a spit what the INTENT of the contract is. It has NO legal standing for the landlord. What is spelled out would ONLY mean what you, and I, are seeing that the landlord intended it to mean IF they had named the date. A calendar month can begin and end on any day, just a a fiscal year often does not end on Dec. 31. Without that defining day of the month, then calendar month is exactly as I described it.

Answer 4

You are right and they are wrong. Stroud's Judicial Dictionary includes this:





"[I]n computing time by calendar months, the time must be reckoned by looking at the calendar and not be counting days. Therefore, one calendar month's imprisonment is to be calculated from the day of imprisonment to the day numerically corresponding to that day in the following month, less one....





"So, as regards the requirement of a calendar month's notice of action, in considering what is the length of a calendar month, it is sufficient, when months are broken whatever be the length of either, to go from one day in one month to the corresponding day in the other."



I can see what they are thinking, that the agreement means a complete month of the year, for example the month of May, the month of June and so on, but that is not what it says.

Answer 5

I think they're trying to screw you. You gave them the required notice. I'd call the manager and ask them to explain how you failed to comply.