Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland
I have a signed lease agreement for a vacation rental. The rental agency wants to cancel the contract because they have charged the incorrect amount for the lease. Can they legally cancel the contract or must they allow me to rent it for that price?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Unless there is language in the lease agreement that gives either party (particularly the owner of the property) the right to cancel within a certain time period after the lease is signed, you should be entitled to enforce the contract. This presumes that the rental amount stated in the agreement was "as advertised" and therefore you had reason to believe it was the correct amount. For example, if they offered a rent applicable to a certain part of the rent season when they should have charged more due to a holiday surcharge, that's their mistake. But if the rent you expected to pay was $3000 for a week and the rental company mistakenly put $300 on the agreement, you would not be able to enforce that since there was never a meeting of the mind on the true rent.