Hi,

My building was sold recently. I have a month-to-month lease. I have a cat, which I have had with me for 2 of my 4 years in the apartment. The new landlords have recently told me I must get rid of my pet. There is nothing in my lease about pets, and they knew I had the pet when they bought the building.

They sent me a letter when they first purchased the building saying all leases would remain as originally signed. My last landlord gave me verbal consent on my cat.

Any help as what to do would be greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately, the verbal consent is not in the lease as originally signed. With the previous landlord's help, you may be able to force them to let you keep the pet until the end of the first lease term. However, they are not required to rent to you anyway, and can refuse to renew your lease at the end of that term.

I'd start looking for a new apartment.

Yes, look for place that allows pets. This new landlord does not have to abide by a verbal agreement from your past landlord/owner. It is tough to experience this, but if it is not written down, the fortune of keeping your pet is not with you.

Now if you would really want to take this court, you would have to have your former landlord there and he(or she) would have to tell the truth on how they agreed on your cat. Still. Since this was not written down, you are not likely to prove your point.

Agreeing with the above, it's good advice if this was a year long (or longer) lease.

But it doesn't really matter, it's a month to month lease, they have the right to refuse to renew it next month so even proving the old landlord agreed wouldn't really help.

Unfortunately its time to look for a new place

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Originally Posted by peacedread

Hi,

My building was sold recently. I have a month-to-month lease. I have a cat, which I have had with me for 2 of my 4 years in the apartment. The new landlords have recently told me I must get rid of my pet. There is nothing in my lease about pets, and they knew I had the pet when they bought the building.

They sent me a letter when they first purchased the building saying all leases would remain as originally signed. My last landlord gave me verbal consent on my cat.

any help as what to do would be greatly appreciated.

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Unfortunately I believe you are going to have to have documentation. Most standard leases do not have a pet clause, but a pet clause is generally used if a tenant wants to have a pet. This usually results in a pet deposit and sometimes a little higher rent for possible damages the pet may cause. If you don't already have documentation of your verbal agreement with the previous Landlord, I'd create one and submit that to the current owner/Landlord. If you have no documentation, they will most likely only go by what the lease states, and if it makes no mention of pets, you may be out of luck. Documentation is everything.

In general you are on a month to month rental, it may be called a lease, but it is subject to change with a 30 day notice. So all they have to do is give you a 30 day notice to make any changes they would like.