Landlord Billing for a Full Month After You Move Out Early

Attorney Answer

Not signing anything does not erase the bill. Your original lease is the contract, and West Virginia has no law forcing a landlord to prorate your final month.

There is no West Virginia statute requiring proration when a tenant vacates before the end of a rental period. Absent a lease term providing for it, a departing tenant generally remains liable for rent through the end of the rental period under ordinary contract principles. W. Va. Code § 37-6-5, the notice-to-terminate-tenancy section, supplies a default notice rule only for periodic tenancies — and by its own terms it does not apply where the parties agreed to a different notice period or where the tenancy has a fixed end date. Because you had a lease with a stated end date that you chose not to renew, your written lease, not § 37-6-5, governs both the notice you owed and your last month's rent.

So the real question is not whether you signed something new. It is whether the $355 traces to a term in the lease you already signed. Late fees, a holdover clause, utilities, cleaning, damages, and an unreturned-key charge are all things a lease can create — and things a landlord can also invent. Make them show you which one.

What you can do

1. Pull out your lease and read four things: the end date, the notice-to-vacate clause, any proration clause, and the late-fee and holdover clauses. 2. Email the landlord once, in writing, asking for an itemized statement of the $355 — what period it covers, what each charge is, and which lease paragraph authorizes it. 3. In the same email ask for the security-deposit accounting and when you will receive it. 4. Line up your own proof: bank records for the rent that was withdrawn, the date you returned the keys, and any message confirming they received them. 5. If a charge does not trace to a lease paragraph, dispute it in writing and say plainly that you dispute it. Keep a copy of everything you send. 6. If they sue in magistrate court, appear. A landlord seeking money has to show the lease entitles them to it, and your lease is your defense. If you believe the withdrawal put you in the negative wrongly, you can file your own claim in magistrate court.