Should I say anything if my landlord lowered my rent by mistake?
Landlord clerical errors on lease renewals put tenants in a bind between pocketing the savings and preserving a good relationship. Staying quiet can save hundreds of dollars a month, but it risks getting called out later or facing retaliation and a non-renewal at the end of the year.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Signing the lease silently and hoping the landlord does not notice the mistakeDid this help you?
- 2Pointing out the pricing discrepancy to the landlord proactively before signingDid this help you?
- 3Signing the lower lease and preparing to pay the difference or move out later if the landlord catches the errorDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I know this sounds obvious, but I’m assuming you just sign the lease and act like nothing happened? What if he realizes the error in a month from now - does it make me look bad that I obviously saw it was lowered on accident?”source ↗
“Would also suck to point this error out and my rent goes up to 3700 but it was already what I was expecting”source ↗
“If you want a good relationship and you were already expecting the raise, I’d point it out. If you value the reduction and don’t mind antagonistic relationship and likely not a renewal in a year but want to save several hundred a month, I’d sign and hope he doesn’t notice.”source ↗
Where this came up
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