On July 1st at about 11pm, I took down a notice which had been posted on my door. I had been out of town since the previous Thursday, so I am unsure as to when it was posted, but am assuming it was posted on either Thursday the 28th or Friday the 29th, during office hours. I did not retain this notice, but it appeared to be a standard boilerplate notification flyer, and said something to the effect of the fact that I was coming up on the end of my lease and talked about new lease prices and new lease lengths. I do not recall if there was any mention of being required to complete an intent to vacate notice, or any type of statement about length of notice necessary, whether at the end of a lease or whether a tenant was on month to month. Today, July 3rd, I informed the apt complex of my intent to move out at the end of my lease, yet again...

When I informed the girl behind the desk, she gave me an intent to vacate notice, which indicated a minimum of 20 days notice to move out. My 9 month lease was prepaid, with rent being paid in full through the end of July. I put down July 24th as my intended vacate day, thinking that the apt complex might as well get a jump on preparing the apt for the next occupants. I'll be moving into a house the weekend of July 14th, and figured that a week would be sufficient time for me to complete moving out and cleaning the apt. I did this not expecting any type of pro-rated refund on my lease.

I entered N/A on the intent to vacate form, where it specified that tenant was responsible for rent through (blank date), as my rent is already prepaid. The girl behind the counter (brown hair, apprx 110 lbs, early 20's) took the form, then informed me that since I was on a lease, I had to give 60 days notice. I told her that I had had an incident where the office staff had told me that there was a glitch in the computers, which resulted in me and other tenants on prepaid status receiving eviction notices. I believe this incident took place in the middle of May. When I responded to that eviction notice, I faxed a letter to the office, explaining that I was on prepaid status and did not owe rent. I saw a copy of my fax in my apt file when I was discussing this with the office staff today. After faxing that letter to the office, I followed up with phone calls. I left three messages on the phone over the course of two days, and did not receive a call back. The third day, which was the day specified as being thrown out of my apt, I was able to reach Julie over the phone, at which time she explained about the office computer glitch and said that several residents had been affected. During this conversation, I informed her of my intent to move out when my lease expired as my fiance and I were going to move into a house. I asked her when exactly my lease expired, as I had not been provided with a copy upon move in, and although I had signed a nine-month lease, there were an additional two weeks that had been pro-rated and I was unsure as to whether that was on the front or back end of the nine month lease, which made a difference as to what I needed to do for rent, since I couldn't move into the house we were going to rent until July. Julie informed me that my lease expired at the end of July, making no mention of having to complete a intent to vacate form.

In late June, I lost my key ring that contained my mailbox keys. I informed the office staff (older lady, mid 40's, short brown hair, apprx 200lbs), and the lady entered a work order to have a key made. At that time, in discussing how the keys were lost, I mentioned that it was unfortunate about the timing, as I would be moving out at the end of July and that I had never lost a key ring before, so it was weird that I would do so as I was coming up on not needing them anymore. Again, the lady made no mention of an intent to vacate form or any type of follow up comment in response to my comments.

I mentioned the above to the girl at the office, who was joined by a second office staff member towards the beginning of my explanation of events (older lady, mid 40's, long blond hair, apprx 160 lbs). The second lady said that the lease specified 60 days notice. I informed her that I had had two previous discussions with the staff about moving out and that there was no mention on any conversation about having to complete a form, and that I thought I had fulfilled my obligation since I had not been told otherwise. I told her that I had paid to live at the apts for a specified period of time, and that I was not going to pay additional sums if I was not going to be living there, especially since I had not indicated that I wished to do so, and that I had not been informed that I had to. The second lady retrieved my office file, pointing out where I had initialed next to the sixty days notice. I told her again that I had previous discussions with the office staff that I considered notice, and that since none of them had told me I needed to complete a form that the burden for that was on them. At that time, the second lady said that she could put me on month to month status and that sixty day notice would not be required, only 20 days. I asked her what that meant, and she said that I could pay rent for August and be able to get out of the apartment at the end of August and not be responsible after that. I told her again, that I felt I had given sufficient notice and that the staff had failed to follow up on obtaining required documents, and that I would not pay for an apartment that I would not be residing in after the expiration of a lease that I had fully paid for prior to moving in. At that time, she told me that I would be responsible for rent through September, since I had failed to give the proper notice, which would be an additional months rent, and that she was trying to help me out, since if I did not pay, it would go to a collection agency and "you won't be able to finance a house or get into other apartments". She then took the intent to vacate form that I had already completed and signed, and wrote in September on the line where it said tenant was responsible for rent through. After writing that in on the form, she took it and began to walk away, saying "Would you like a copy of your lease"' I said yes, and a copy of that form as well, then I stopped her and asked her to come back to the counter. I took the intent to vacate form, wrote in "disputed" and put my initials next to where she had changed my "N/A" to September.

I asked her how that math was possible, since the end of September was well over sixty days past todays date and that even if I was not disputing when notice had been given sixty days from today was September 1st, since there were 31 days in July and August, to which she replied that if I failed to give proper notice, it would be sixty days from the end of my lease, and that if I went into September, I was responsible for the whole months rent then. She suggested again that I sign up for month to month and just pay for August. I told her that even if that was the case, if apartment complexes made a common practice of pro-rating for people moving in, why would you not pro-rate for people moving out - that she was talking 1 day into the month and that they would need prep time to get the apt ready anyway, that they could not rent it to someone for the entire month if that happened. She said again that that was why she recommended signing up for month to month and just paying for August. I told her again that her math was funny, and said now that I thought about it, if today was counted as a day of notice, it would actually be Aug 31st for sixty days notice. She said that it would not be, that it would go over into September and that she was trying to help me out with the month to month option. She said again, that if I didn't pay one way or the other, that it would be submitted to a collections agency and that I wouldn't be able to finance a house or move into other apartments with that on my record. I told her that my credit was excellent, and that again, I wasn't going to pay for something I wasn't going to use - if her company decided to escalate this, I would challenge it in court or another venue, and if I ended up taking a hit on my record for non-payment, so be it. At that time she pointed out a section I had initialed on my lease that spoke about attorneys fees, which stated that the winning party could recover fees from the losing party. She said that this was all iron-clad, absolutely a sealed deal per Washington state law, and that I would simply end up paying attorneys fees on top of the additional rent, saying again that this would not be a problem if I would sign for month to month and just pay for August rent. I told her that it was not iron-clad, that there was certainly some question as to whether or not her company had any obligation to inform me of the intent to vacate notice when I had had the previous conversation, and that if necessary, I would let a court decide that. I told her that if her company escalated this, I would as well and that I felt her entire conversation had basically been a high-pressure sales tactic to get me to pay for an additional months rent, using the threat of collections and lack of future housing as a tool. I told her that her wording and tone that she had used were not one of explanation of potential consequences, and that I particularly did not like the way she had changed a form after I had signed it, and then attempted to walk away with it. I told her that I understood that at the office staff level, her job was to maximize profitability for her company, but that I was not going to let her threaten me into paying for something that I was not going to use, and that she needed to present the full story of what had happened to the people in her company that were authorized to make decisions.

Additional research I did on the web shows that even though there may be wording in the lease from the previous management company that requires 60 days notice, it is illegal. RCW 59.19.220 provides, "in all cases where premises are rented for a specified time, by express or implied contract, the tenancy shall be deemed terminated at the end of such specified time." Chris Benis, a Real Estate attorney with Harrison Benis & Spence and past president of AASK, as well as current RHA Legal Counsel and Second Vice President, wrote that "When you write a rental agreement with a tenant, you should carefully consider both RCW 59.18.200(1) and RCW 59.18.220 and determine whether you want an agreement that automatically expires or whether you expect a party wishing to terminate the agreement give written notice a minimum of 20 days in advance of the termination date. Both landlords and tenants, however, often believe that term leases automatically turn into MTM agreements when they are allowed to expire and the tenant stays in the premises. This is not entirely true. How a court will rule in a particular case is based upon the circumstances of each case." Per the Revised Code of Washington, you can't sign away tenant rights - if something prohibited is in the rental contract or lease, which appears to happen pretty frequently, it becomes unenforceable. I wonder just how many times FPI has collected additional rent from people that legally didn't have to pay...all they have to do is threaten and a certain percentage will pay it without question. For the people that don't, I guess all they have to do is say oops, we thought we were within the law, never mind.

I will be contacting a lawyer, both for protection in case The Reserve tries to file with a collection agency, and to see if I can seek any legal action against them for the high pressure tactics they used in trying to get me to sign up for additional and unnecessary rent. I could write about all kinds of other things too, such as lack of access to "amenities", extremely dark parking lots, lack of parking spaces (I counted a total of 12 open spaces in the entire complex last Wed and have to regularly walk around or past three or more buildings up and down hills to get to my car...), an overriding sense that FPI management is all about the fees they can tack on, and other things, but I think this is long enough. The view is nice, if you can get into a couple of buildings, otherwise, there is really not much to recommend it.

I guess I'll review them on Yahoo, Citysearch and as many other places as I can find. If they actually follow through, I'll add the state attorney general and the BBB to the list too. Can anyone tell me why state law specifies 20 days or more notice, and The Reserve asks for 20 days notice from the month to month renters, but require the leaseholders to put in 60 days notice' Who necessarily knows that far out - lot of things can happen in that time. Unreasonable, just like the Reserve. Apparently FPI just manages for Kennedy Wilson Investments...http://www.kennedywilson.com./company_news.php

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/04/2007
I MOVED IN BEFORE FPI TOOK OVER- AND HAD THE SAME PROBLEM WHEN TRYING TO GIVE MY NOTICE TO THE OLD MANAGEMENT COMPANY. I TURNED IN KEYS RIGHT AFTER FPI TOOK OVER AND EXPRESSED MY DISTASTE FOR THE 60 DAY NOTICE REQUIREMENT- DEENA THEN INFORMED ME THAT THAT WAS THE OLD COMPANIES LEASE AND THAT FPI ONLY REQUIRED A TWENTY DAY NOTICE. SHE INFORMED ME WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT WE SIGN AND BOUND BY THAT CONTRACT NO MATTER WHAT COMPANY MADE THE LEASE. I WILL DEFINATLY READ MY CONTRACTS A LITTLE CLEARER FROM NOW ON AS I SUSPECT YOU WILL TOO. ITS NOT FPI'S FAULT, ITS THE OLD MANAGEMENT COMPANY- YOU SHOULD TAKE IT UP WITH THEM AS I HAVE WWW.NALS.COM IS THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESS BUT IT DIDN'T GET ME ANY WHERE- THEY SAID I SIGNED IT- I GUESS I AM THE FOOL.
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/05/2007
Regardless of what is in a lease or rental contract, according to title 59 chapter 18 of the revised code of washington, you can not sign away your rights as a tenant. State law supersedes any rental contract, says so right in the law. They can put 60 days notice, but can't hold you to it - law says when a lease is over, it's over. I'm guessing most people didn't know this, didn't check it out and never challenged it - nice way for the old company and FPI to squeeze additional rent out of people who don't know their rights.
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/06/2007
Actually perhaps all should know that contract law does prevail, as long as your landlord upholds Washington State law, they can request addition to their lease, this is their given right. If you signed, perhaps you will learn to better understand you lease at the time of signing. Also almost all leases do state that should your lease expire, it will continue to renew itself for month to month tenancy, in which all provisions of the lease apply. People, understand your leases, whom is really at fault at times like this
From: Kari206	Date: 09/13/2007
the same thing is happening to my roommate and i. duggiejr, what was your final result? we are outraged and don't know what action to take. what are your suggestions? please help! thank you

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