Should I pay my landlord half month's rent for five days?

No lease so there is room to negotiate. I would offer much less. $150 and settle for $200 during negotiating seems fair.

Ok that sounds about right. Thanks

Exactly. Make a more fair offer. One quarter for slightly less than a quarters use is fair. They aren’t running a business, or you’d have a lease. You have leverage because they can’t kick you out, and suing wouldn’t be worth it.

The position you’re in, you could just screw them over. Stall for a couple days and bail, but that’s not a way to live.

Prorate if there is no lease. Unsure if you had a verbal agreement on notice however. Else $150 to a max of $200 is fair to both sides.

If he wants half a month’s rent, you should be staying for half a month.

Edit to add, I’m sure he’s going to want to start prepping the unit to rent it out to someone else, so he’d rather you left earlier than stay for half a month, therefore, he should be willing to do less for a shorter stay.

Definitely argue that if she wants half the rent, you have access to the place for half a month. It’s nice to have extra time to get everything moved over to your new place of residence. It also gives you time to thoroughly clean. I always appreciated in times past when I was able to start moving into my next place early or had some extra time to move out of my current place.

With no lease it’s up to you. Are you expecting a deposit back? Kinda depends on that, for me.

Not expecting deposit but her asking for half is beyond too much. I didn’t think she want me to pay for 9.more days that I won’t be there. Tes I can thoroughly clean too. We still at the beginning of the month I guess to her she’s loosing an income.

@honeybun35 – this is a side gig for her. Sure she wants more money, who doesn’t, but she is not entitled to it. If she wants a real rental business, then she has to do it legally.

I mean with no lease, you can tell her to piss off and just leave. Don’t do that though, Follow my first answer. Half is not too much unless she is holding a deposit. Did you give her one?

Gave her security when I still owned my home I moved different state. She did receive that

How much was it?

Like $900

Ok, that changes things. You shouldn’t have put that money up without a lease, because now you are the one who isn’t protected by contract law, and has no real legal recourse. Do whatever she says to get that money back, even if you lose an extra $200 for rent you didn’t use.

This becomes a math equation now. 900–415 = $485 and that’s if she does not try to take any more of your deposit for “reasons.” You still need to try to negotiate but you have no leverage. Make sure you do all of this in one transaction. Do not pay her anything and accept that she will pay you the deposit back later. Do not budge on this. You’ll be out $415 + $900 if you do.

Landlord has the upper hand because she can say you damaged the unit and it’s really her word against yours.

As an attorney told me once, “You can wallpaper your wall with judgements but you can’t make them pay.” Meaning, you can do Small Claims Court to try to recoup your deposit, but it will be time consuming and even with a Judgement, you can’t make her pay you back.

This isn’t about the deposit. This is more so about her wanting me to pay her half just for a few days

@Smashley and @honeybun35 , and others, definitely look up your rental rights for your state. In my state, Maryland, if a landlord / landlady has not given you a receipt for your security deposit, and this is independent of whether there is a lease or not, then you have the right to demand your full security deposit back, even if they claim damages. So if she didn’t give you a receipt, and if you happen to live in Maryland, you would be due back the entire amount. But I would definitely do a search for whatever state you live in and find out exactly what they say. There are most definitely renter’s rights for each state that would hold up in a court of law.

@LifeQuestioner – That sounds nice, but even if Maryland, if you have a dispute with your landlord and you never signed a lease, there may be renter protections, but it’s a lot less formal, and thus a whole lot harder to enforce. In court, OP would have to prove that they gave a security deposit, without having a receipt. Honestly, I’ve never heard of a security deposit on an off the books rental.

@Smashley, I agree with you about the lease thing although that actually hurts the landlady more than it would the tenant. I think the idea about the receipt for the security deposit is that the landlord or landlady would have had to keep a copy of the receipt and if they didn’t they would be out of luck.

It was done through zelled. I did this before even meeting her. My realtor told me about lady and her husband renting a room. To hold it I zelled her before moving state.

Well, that’s a receipt of sorts. I think bottom line, you don’t want her to withhold some of the deposit because she’s mad at you for rent. Whatever legal options you have are probably not worth the cost and time. I’d just give her what she asked for.

What’s the update?