3-Day Pay or Vacate but Rent never Late

[Cheryl Allin]

Hey everyone! Posting to get some advice as I'm in a quandary here. Landlord just served me a 3-day pay or vacate that states that I didn't pay partial rent for last Oct, didn't pay rent for November, didn't pay this current January, late fees and an additional amount for the 'yearly utility reconciliation' from last October.

Here's the problem. I paid ALL of that.

I moved in to this SFH in Washington State on September 1st, 2016 with a 2 year lease (non-notarized) and on that day, paid first & last and a deposit. I then informed my work HR team to split my direct deposit payroll so the landlord would get 50% rent payments (thus all of October rent 2016 was paid well prior to October 1st) and I continued to pay rent via payroll direct deposit until my company said I could only have one direct deposit as of November 1st, 2017. The landlord even got my $1000 Christmas bonus in 2016.

Part of my rent payment is a fee for utilities. However, there were overages. I paid all of those last October after a bit of Excel work to prorate (our utility bills in 2 month increments).

So, all rent was paid well in advance up until this last December 2017. November 2017 rent was paid by October 20th, then HR stopped the payments out of my payroll. On December 5th, 2017 I deposited the full rent amount for December 2017 rent into my landlords account and I have the cash advance and deposit receipts. Rent for January 2018 was paid via check through my bank and was initiated on December 20th (to give Simple plenty of time to print and mail to Arizona).

So, do I get a lawyer? Do I try to verify with my bank that the Jan 2018 check was cashed? Do I speak to my landlord to try and convince him that I'm not late?

This is a total shock, the last email I got from him he asked if I wanted to terminate early as he wants to 'do some major repairs and upgrades' and I'm just short circuiting here.

I strive to be a good tenant. I work from home, I'm quiet and I pay my bills. What would you do?

[Nathan Gesner]

Have you talked to the Landlord yet? If you have all the evidence, why not call them and share that with them? Perhaps the bank dumped the funds in the wrong account? Maybe the Landlord is looking in the wrong account? Maybe you wrote the account number wrong on the deposit slip? Maybe the Landlord has bad memory and filed the notice against you by accident and it was intended for another tenant?

It seems silly to draw battle lines before even talking with the Landlord to find why they filed notice.