Rental Question

As a landlord with one of the few rentals in an entire county, I bet I know what happened. He keeps getting phone calls about how others will pay double the rent and he wants to get the additional rent. We did a month to month because if the tenant gives me any grief, they are going to be given 30 days notice and replaced on day 31 with someone else.
If you really want to stay, you should offer him at least $300 more per month and get him to sign a year's lease.

Your terms go both ways. Just as you could tell him at the beginning of the month good bye so can he. If you are required to give say two weeks notice you will move out at the first of the month then so does he.

Does that make sense?

You need to read your lease agreement and the Missouri Landlord-Tenant Law. Together they define the laws in your state and the terms to which you agreed when you signed into the lease. Typically, yes, your 30-day notice should be written and not verbal but I would be leary in a month-to-month lease situation.

Here's the link to the MO L/T law: http://ago.mo.gov/publications/landlordtenant.pdf

ETA: Giving it some more thought, because of the recent tornado in Joplin, my bet is now that housing is scarce the market is really good for sellers. I would start looking now because he will most likely have people lined up to buy.

Sounds like he gave you your 30 days notice.

Read your contract or lease...you state you are month to month...so for me? its like living out of a suitcase....

Ouch - a $500 a month hike in rent? that sucks!! start looking to purchase then...you might find a rent to own or a lease to own purchase...unfortunately, you might have to start looking outside your area...which sucks too!!

I'm sorry!!

Oh man.
I'm a single mother and I had a landlord do something similar to me.
I was going through a very bitter divorce and had to move out of our family home so that it could be sold.
They interviewed me several times. Did a full background check. Wanted to meet my kids to make sure they were well behaved. I had to give all kinds of character references.
I'd been married so I didn't have recent rental history as we'd always owned our homes.
They made a huge deal out of wanting someone who would be stable and stay there because they didn't want to have to go through this process all the time. (Good Lord! Neither did I!).
I wasn't even there two months, didn't have my stuff unpacked and they came and put a "For Sale" sign in the front yard.
...Informed me that I had to have the house presentable and available for real estate tours and people to come through who were interested in buying the house.
They KNEW what they were doing. They wanted to sell the house, but they didn't want it to sit empty not getting any rent while it was on the market.
I seriously could have killed them.
I was so upset.
Then....when I found another place to go, we did a final exit walk through, which I videotaped. A week later, I got a call from the wife telling me not to cash my deposit refund check because she had put a stop-payment on it.
They tried to say that I ruined the carpets to the extent that ALL the carpeting in that entire house had to be replaced. They replaced all the carpet and turned it in on their homeowner's insurance.
Well, the insurance company investigated the claim and I sent them a copy of our walk through proving there was zero damage to the carpets. ZERO.
Sorry for venting about that.
But they took advantage of a woman with two little kids going through a divorce and then got in trouble for insurance fraud.

Your landlord might not be nearly as devious, but I certainly would consider your telephone conversation to be your "notice" of their intentions.
With a month to month agreement, that means they only have to give you 30 days. It sounds like they are letting you know that 30 days could come at any time.
Things might be different in California. I would talk to legal aide or someone who assists with tenant's rights in your county.
I'm fairly positive you have to be served with a 30 Day Notice to Vacate in writing for the 30 days to start ticking.
It's a pain in the butt, I know, but if you can't qualify to buy the house, you'll have no choice but to find another one.
I wasn't able to find a place even in the same city and it really stunk because I didn't want my daughter to have to switch schools. So...I drove her back and forth and carpooled for a year.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you. Just try to be proactive. Try to accept that for all the hassle this is, maybe it's because something even better and more stable will come along for you.
That's how it worked out for me even though I couldn't really see it at the time.

Hang in there and best wishes.

they are required to give you written notice of the 30 days and the 30 days notice is effective at the end of the current rent payment. so if you pay rent on say september 1st then you have 30 days starting october 1st. that is the way it was explained to us by the realtor

this should be spelled out in your rental agreement. do you still have a copy of it?

That sounds like a 30 day notice to me =/
Does your lease say anything about the notice? Can you call back and ask to be sure? I would definitely start looking for something else.

This happened to us with our last rental. We let our landlord know ahead of time that we were interested in a long-term living situation, and he said that he didn't foresee any issues with that...he was also my husband's boss, so when he told us he was selling the place and asked if we were interested in buying it (for a price that we couldn't afford), we were a little miffed, but just went along with it. On the bright side, It pushed us to go ahead and buy a house which we love (with a lot of financial help from our folks).

The bottom line was that our landlord/ my husband's boss at the time knew that he was going to sell the house, but didn't want it sitting vacant when it could be bringing in an income. I don't fault him for needing the money, but it is a sleazy way of doing business.

Unfortunately, with a month to month, there's nothing to be done. Maybe he figures you would buy it, and is trying to scare you into it...I don't really know. But thorough leases/rental agreements are good for a variety of reasons. I learned that the hard way, with my second apartment as an adult...didn't sign ANY sort of lease, landlord didn't want to give me receipts for rent and I didn't get my renter's tax forms...sleazy...and this was a "stand up citizen" well respected in our city.

I hope you find someplace great!