Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Florida

I live in Volusia County Florida. I have a lease on a rental property and was just served a Pay or quit notice. I have a few questions regarding this form. I have been reading online and this form may have been filled out incorrectly.

First: The form title is "Notice to Pay Rent or Quit" and it is signed by only one of the gentlemen that is on my lease names as the landlords connected with the word "and"

Second: This form includes rental dates and amounts followed by late fees per month they are claiming.

Third: The amount being asked for is incorrect. Orignially, the lease was signed for 1500.00 per month but last year, since they didn't fix the cooling system, and the high electric bills were killing us, they agreed to reduce the rent to 1200.00. I can show about a years worth of payments for this amount. Then this year, our business went belly up (one of the landlords was my husbands business partner) and work stopped alltogether. I have since started working as a substitute teacher but just started receiving checks. When we talked with one of the landlords his comment was, over and over, "Pay what you can, it is better than nothing since we really want to sell the house." The whole summer the house was up for sale by owner and a few weeks ago they placed it with a realtor. There is more to this story! Either way, we have cooperated but no one has contacted us to see the house etc. Recently, we started the adoption process of a child that was a ward of the state. His adoption will be final on Jan 4th. With the present oral agreement, we thought that they didn't want the house to sit vacant, and we needed to stay put until Jan all was okay. However, now something has changed. Friendship of 13 years plus is now coming to an end and we were lied to. If the PAY WHAT YOU CAN isn't true, why did he wait 4 months to serve us? He claims we paid nothing in August, $1000.00 in September, nothing in October and only 600.00 in November. When in Fact, on July 31, I gave him 1200.00, and in September I gave him 1000.00 and recenlty 600.00. Yes, we didn't get to make a payment in October because I didn't have work.

What do we do now?


Asked on 11/15/09, 2:29 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Sarah Grosse Sarah Grosse, Esquire

In order to defend against an eviction action (when it is filed), you must deposit the disputed rent with the court. You would answer the complaint (eviction) when it is filed and served on you. You defend your position in court, and you bring to court all your proof of prior payments and written modifications to the lease agreement. Or, you can move out in the next three days before the eviction action is filed, and then wait for the landlord to sue you for back rent money; again, you can defend yourself against that lawsuit.

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Answered on 11/20/09, 2:51 pm


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