Rent Increase

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

On a standard lease, does anyone know how much notice the tenants are supposed to be given if they are renewing their lease if the landlord wants to increase the rent?

Short version: our lease is up at the end of this month. Last night was the first we'd heard of a possible increase in our rent after making it clear at least two weeks ago that we wanted to renew for another year. Our last month deposit has not been used. Can the landlord do this? Or are they required to have given us more notice than this?

Thanks very much for any help or advice in advance!

(an apartment in Somerville/Davis Square area)

EDIT: Thanks for everyone's help, we've come to an agreement with the landlord on the issue.

Comments

[mrpet.livejournal.com]

Leases automatically change over to a month by month rental agreement at the end. It is up to the landlord to issue you a notice in writing of his intent to terminate the rental agreement; a 30 day notice is needed.

[unferth.livejournal.com]

Do you have a reference for this? It doesn't match my understanding of the situation, or at least it varies depending on the terms of the lease. But I'm no lawyer.

The clearest reference for the way I understood it to work that I can find is:
How to be a tenant in Massachusetts and avoid getting ripped off (http://www.gis.net/~groucho/tenant.html#24)
"If you have a fixed-term lease which is expiring, the landlord is not required to give you any notice. But since most leases are renewed annually, and most landlords and tenants expect that to be the case, landlords often give notice anyway if they don't want to renew the lease."

If the landlord accepts rent, that creates an at-will tenancy, but if they just say 'Your lease is up, sorry' and don't accept the check, I don't think there's a notice period required. Unless there's one written into the lease, of course, and self-extending leases or leases that create tenancies at will after they expire are pretty common.