Lease Change After Signing
landlord tenant attorney Michigan Jul 25, 2026
So there’s a few things I’ll start with just as background. I’ve been trying to transfer apartments in the same complex for about 4 months now. If me and my roommates had known we were going to get the run around for so long we would’ve found somewhere else. I live in Location: Michigan in an area that’s pretty pricy and usually a lot of places have wait lists. The leasing office has continuously miscommunicated what we need to do and just given us issues the whole time. It came to a breaking point the DAY BEFORE we were supposed to move in. We signed a lease on June 10th and were due to move July 24th. I had emailed and called multiple times the week before moving in to make sure we had everything in order and knew what to pay/do the day of move in. On the 23rd they finally sent me a welcome letter showing all the fees and the first months rent I had to pay. Side note: I have a roommate and a co-signer. On this letter not only was our move in date wrong (July 12th which already passed), but the deposit was raised compared to our lease. Basically the entire thing was wrong. It was already past closing time so I had to wait until the morning of move in to get in touch with them. The morning of move in I already planned on going over to the office, but they called me and told me the apt wasn’t ready/not cleaned even though they had promised me the keys several times in the past and the day before. I also got an email with a new lease with the $500 deposit instead of $300 on our original. So I took myself over there more pissed than I already was. When I got there they told me everyone was busy so I should just leave the manager some notes on what’s wrong and he would call me in the afternoon. Absolutely not I told them unacceptable and it’s pretty clear he wasn’t busy because he came right out. Three people stood in front of me while I told them that everything was wrong and that I’d need my keys as promised. Suddenly a maintenance guy comes in with my keys and tells me the cleaners turned off the fridge so not to put in anything right away. I took them and I started to suspect they were trying to delay until we signed this new lease so they could get more money. Then I told them we don’t have to sign anything new as it’s a legally binding contract. We’d be happy to pay everything and did pay the original amount on the lease the same day. I even checked my lease to make sure there wasn’t a sneaky part allowing them to do this. I later got a call saying there could be late fees or “legal filings” if we don’t pay the new amount and they wouldn’t release the keys without the money. I felt very pleased when I told the manager I already had them and had moved in. I felt even more suspicious about everything after that because it’s pretty clear they were trying to force us to sign this new lease and we’re going to withhold our apt if the maintenance guy hadn’t come in at the right time. Am I right in doing this? Do they have any right to force us to pay this if on our original lease it says the deposit is $300? I know it’s only $200 but they have been screwing with us for so long and are being shady. I guess my main question is what should I do from here if they try to force us?
