Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Washington
lease agreements, verbal and written
When we moved into the house that we live in we signed what we thought was a six month lease. We had discussed with the owner the lease going to a month to month lease after the initial six months were up. We are preparing to move and have already told the new landlord that we would be ready to move by the end of this month. I looked on the lease to see how many days notice we were required to give and discovered that it is in fact a twelve month lease, not six as we had discussed. Is there an out possible due to the discrepency in what we had discussed verbally and what was ultimately put in the lease? I know we should have read it thoroughly but we assumed nothing had changed from what we had verbally agreed on. Any help would be appreciated.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: lease agreements, verbal and written
You could write a letter to the owner and confirm what you believed. However it is an ancient principle that you can't use an oral agreement to override a written one; the written lease controls.
That said, there is also a principle called 'accord and satisfaction' where you and the owner can agree that you will cut short the lease and leave according to the terms you want. They don't have to agree, in which case they could say you were breaking your lease.
But if you ask nicely and clean the place up and explain you really believed you had a six month lease, maybe they'll agree.
You could also offer to look for their next tenants for them.
Hope that helps - Elizabeth Powell
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