Is it legal to raise the rent with two weeks' notice in Michigan?

Michigan law is very clear regarding a landlord’s right to raise rent. The rules differ depending on whether you have a lease (such as a year’s lease), or you rent month-to-month.

Tenants With Leases

If you have a lease, your landlord cannot raise your rent until the lease has expired, unless it includes specific language that allows for an increase in rent during the life of the lease.

Month-to-Month Tenants

If you have a month-to-month rental agreement, your landlord can terminate it or change its terms (including the rent) with proper notice. In Michigan, proper notice is the interval between rent payments. (Mich. Comp. Laws § 554.134.)

Tenants who pay rent on a monthly basis are entitled to notice of a month in advance. The only way your landlord can give you two weeks’ notice of an increase in rent is if you pay rent every two weeks.

The Consequence of Short Notice

If you pay rent on a monthly basis and your landlord gave you only two weeks’ notice of a rent increase, the notice is defective as to the date the landlord would like the rent to go up. But whether the notice is completely ineffective is not clear. Two results are possible:

• The notice is completely ineffective. If this is so, the tenant can ignore it and wait to receive a proper notice. If the landlord terminates and goes to court to evict on the grounds of nonpayment, the tenant might be able to raise this as a defense.
• The notice takes effect on the date that corresponds to proper notice. Under this approach, the increased rent would be due as of the date that should have been in the notice. Because Michigan allows notices to be effective on dates other than when rent is due, this new date could be mid-month, which would require pro-rating the rent. For example, if you pay monthly rent on the 1st, and receive a two weeks’ rent increase notice on June 15, it will be effective July 15. Arguably, on that day you’d need to pay the difference between fifteen days of the new rent minus fifteen days of the old rent.

Responding to Short Notice

The second option mentioned above suffers from the fact that it requires tenants to know and apply the proper notice rules, when they have not initiated the rent hike. Some judges won’t be comfortable imposing this implicit duty on them. But unless you are quite sure that the first option is the one followed in your local courts, do not count on it, because if you’re wrong, you risk an eviction lawsuit.

Failing to Pay the Rent

If your landlord delivers proper notice (or a court reforms a defective notice), you must pay the new rent. If you don’t, the landlord can’t just toss you out immediately. He must first give you a “pay or quit” notice, giving you seven days to pay the rent or move out. (Mich. Comp. Laws § 554.134(2).) If you do neither, the landlord can begin an eviction lawsuit for nonpayment. Only after the landlord has won can he ask local law enforcement to physically remove you from the property.