(CA) Holding deposit said 12-month lease, lease agreement says Month-to-Month
Hello everyone! I've been on the apartment hunt and found a great place that my partner and I are excited about. We toured the place in-person and decided to pay the holding deposit which would be converted into our security deposit later.
On this "holding deposit / move-in sheet" our lease terms were listed as 12-months, with a lease expiration as April 30, 2027. This is what my partner and I wanted, we are not interested in doing month to month.
Even more clearly, this document had a section saying "Month-to-Month Agreement - circle one Yes or No" which the property management company had clearly circled no on.
We finally received the lease to review and it lists the terms as month to month- which is not what we expected or agreed to. We contacted the property management company and they basically just said that's the property owner's preference...?
If the owner is not willing to do a 12-month lease, what are our options regarding the holding deposit we have already paid?
There is a stipulation in the deposit receipt that says "If tenant fails to rent the premises then the holding deposit described above shall be retained by the Broker for the holding of the premises off of the market, the parties agreeing that actual damage to the broker would be impractical or extremely difficult to fix. Broker shall not be held liable to Tenants for damages for failure to deliver posession of the premises at the time herein estimated, beyond the refund of the holding deposit."
They also screwed up the deposit amount- our deposit / move in form stated the deposit was $2,000 but the lease states the deposit is $2,200.
At this point I don't trust their competence- it took them 2 weeks to get us the lease (we had to follow-up with them twice) and the lease contains mistakes around basic facts from their own forms.