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I live in a staff housing accommodation in BC as subtenant. I have a month to month sublease with my employer being the tenant of the landlord. According to our lease, in case I decide to leave I need to give notice the first day of the preceding month of the vacancy date. In my case, that I plan to leave on March 13th, I gave my verbal notice in January and a written notice letter on February 11th. However, it was brought to my attention by my employer that verbal notice ( gave in January) doesn’t have any legal value, and it will be taken in consideration only the letter I wrote on February 11th. He also implied that legally I will have to pay for the whole months of March and April because I haven’t sent my written notice before February 1. He wants to get paid cash which made me even more suspicious. At this point I talked to the main landlord and I was communicated that a new tenant will take the house on March 15th, renting directly from the landlord. My question at this point is whether I should really legally pay for the whole month of March+ April, especially if a new tenant will take the house right after I leave.

Hope someone can help to get a clarification.

Barmar
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Mario Mazzella
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1 Answers1

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We can't give specific legal advice here, but as a general point of contract law, a person can usually only obtain damages for breach of contract. Damages means placing the person back in the position they would have been in had the breach not occurred.

A failure to give sufficient notice to end a tenancy can cause the landlord to incur losses due to delays in finding a new tenant. If they can convince the court that they would have found a tenant earlier had the correct notice been given, then they could ask as damages for the loss of rent between that earlier hypothetical date and the actual date that a new tenant moved in.

In the example where the tenant under the original tenancy pays rent until 13 March and the new tenant starts paying rent from 15 March, there is at most 1 day of lost rent (14 March) due to the failure to give correct notice. The landlord can't claim rent for the period after 14 March since this would place him in a better position than if the breach hadn't occurred.

On another note, there is no rule of law that says that "verbal notice doesn't have any legal value". You'd need to check what your contract actually says on this point. For example, whether it specifies that any notice must be given in writing.

JBentley
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