We've been in this condo for two years now. It's not perfect, but it fulfills most of our needs. To be honest, we're both getting tired of the stairs and pretty much every part of the kitchen, but it's still become home. Our lease expires on January 1st, and we've been waiting for an updated rental agreement from our landlord.
Yesterday we received an email from the landlord pointing out that he had to review our last lease and the HOA rules and regulations before issuing a new agreement, because during the last set of repairs, he noticed that there was a new dog on the premises that wasn't on the lease and looked to be over the 40 lb. weight limit of the rules. (Raffi is hovering at 50 lbs.) He didn't say he wouldn't renew the lease, but if we stayed it would be taking a risk if the HOA ever got wind of the violation.
(Ben is friends with someone on the board and he asked her about it; she said they'd never gone after a resident because of a dog's weight.)
A few hours later he sent a followup email and offered us the choice of renewing the lease (increasing it about $100/month and keeping the risk of violating the HOA rules in mind), moving out at the end of January (since he'd been tardy in notifying us 30 days before the end of our current agreement), or going month-to-month until we find a new place.
This came out of left field and left us both reeling. On a whim, I reached out to our former landlord and asked her if the repairs on our old place were complete (six months ago they still weren't) and if the house had already been spoken for.
To sum up, no the repairs aren't complete, but she estimated the house would be ready by February—especially since she knew we wanted to move back. When we asked about the rent, she quoted a figure only $200 more a month than we were paying in 2020. (The figure she gave us is about $1000 less than the going rate for a three-bedroom house in Phoenix right now, and about $600 less than we're currently paying.)
Okay, we'd be losing the enclosed garage, but we'd be gaining a yard and once again living on a single floor.
We're meeting with her and her husband on Saturday to see what's been done and discuss the situation further.