Landlord quadrupling rent in Ohio

Question

This ended up being a case of clerical error on their part. They didnt raise the rent at all for the remaining 3 weeks.

---

As part of my lease agreement, we must give a 60 day notice before we intend to vacate, even when the lease is expiring. The lease says that we are responsible for the remaining time at "a premium rate" on a month to month basis.

We were late in giving this notice by about 3 weeks.

We gave our notice, and expected our rent to go up for the remaining time. However, looking at our rent portal, the amount due is now 6k. 4 times the monthly rent we were paying before.

I understand that the rent is going to go up some, but quadrupling the monthly rent for 3 weeks is completely abusive.

Is there any action I can take? I didn't find any kind of protection for renters in this case, but I feel helpless. If we really do have to pay this amount we will have to default.

Edit: The specific verbiage in the lease is

60 day written notice to vacate is required. Should proper written notice not be provided, resident shall remain liable for rent for the number of days that the notice is deficient, at a month to month premium rate, for all days the Lease is extended beyond the initial Lease Term, until the earlier of: (i) sixty (60) days following the date Resident provides such notice of termination or (ii) the date on which a new resident's lease term for the premises begins.

Answer 1

The legal limits on what you can be charged as rent in housing (apart from government housing) is whatever the lease says: there is no rent control in Ohio. If the lease says $1500/mo, you would owe that until the end of the lease. If you don't leave at the end, you have a holdover tenancy, so again it depends on what the lease says. If it says that you may continue on a month-by-month basis at that rate (unlikely) then you owe $1500/mo. If it says you owe $2500/mo under the monthly option, that's what you would pay. I assume that the lease says nothing about rent after the end of the lease. In Steiner v. Minkowski, 72 Ohio App.3d-754 it was found that in a similar situation, "Appellants can be held liable only for fair rental value of the premises and for damages caused by the delay in returning possession of the premises to the landlord". That is, if a tenant is given notice that the new rent will be some specific increased amount, they will be liable for that, but if there is no such indication, the presumption is that the tenancy continues at the existing rate, and not at an unannounced increased rate.