My lease ended in March 2006 but I never got a renewal letter, now I want to move. What do I do?

Hey ya'll!
Here's the deal....
My lease, for my apartment, ended March 2006.
I called to inquire as to why I had not received a renewal and was told the property was under new management. I found this out in February and was told that I'd get a renewal notice soon...Needless to say the months passed. I inquired again and was simply told I'd receive 30 notification if there was a rent increase. Here we are August 2006 I'm just receiving a renewal offer. Rent is going up $100 bucks for 13 month lease or $150 for a 6 month lease. I don't want to pay this much more and would like to move.
To my understanding, after the year lease was up in March 2006, my rent defaulted to month to month. Because of this I should only have to give 30 days notice correct? I don't have a copy of my full lease just the top page but I'm going to visit the rental office in the a.m. and want to be prepared. Most importantly I don't want to be taken advantage of.

Once your written lease ended you became a month-to-month tenant, AT THE SAME TERMS AND CONDITIONS as your previous lease. The rent continued at the same rate on a monthly basis.

This means that the landlord is entitled to increase your rent with 30 days advance written notice. This also means that you are entitled to terminate the lease with 30 days advance written notice.

HOWEVER, you must check the terms of your previous lease. If there was a provision in there that required you to give 60 days advance written notice that you did not intend to renew the lease, then you are still required to give 60 days advance written notice now if you want to terminate.

Also make sure that your previous lease did not contain an "automatic renewal" clause.

If the lease did not contain either of these provisions then you can give the landlord 30 days notice that you intend to move out. Make sure you do a move-out inspection with the landlord or the landlord's representative and get something from them in writing detailing any damage with which you agree. This will be important when it's time to get your security deposit returned to you.

if you did not sign a new lease, then you either have no lease and are living without it, or you are correct to assume you are on a month to month. it depends on the city you live in, most have a standard month to month policy.

so, they can't hold you to a year and they can only raise your rent if you sign a new lease.

bottom line, move out. it's very expensive for them to try and chase you down.

Unless you signed the lease extension, your lease reverted to month to month. I'm betting if you want to move like real soon, you can give 30 days notice.

legally you didnt even have to pay him up to this point. To answer your question just move you dont have anything legally holding you there. Make sure that you get all that security deposit back along with the interest. Dont let him say that he has to change the carpet or paint the walls and so forth because by law he has to for every tenant. In order to get a new C.O.
Hope this helps ! thanks

I've heard the judge on The People's Court say a few times that if a lease expires you are then on a month-to-month lease.

"legally you didnt even have to pay him up to this point." Oh please. Sometimes I wonder what some of you are smoking when you answer questions.

You are now on a month to month basis.

30 days notice is not usually 30 days, it's a full calender month. I see people in my office every week who gave a literal 30 day notice and ended up losing part or all of their deposit.

In other words, if you give notice on August 20th, the effective date would be the last day of September, not September 20th, because September would be the full calender month. If the landlord says ok to a partial month, make sure you get it in writing so they don't try and take the remainder of the month out of your deposit.